Half Dead: Dogs of War
by RedRipley3
Summary: PREMISE: Dom did not find Maria in the Hollow. 3 parallel love stories: Dom/Maria, Baird/OC and Marcus/Anya. Sweet, hot, and awkward, in that order. Chapters alternate past and present. CHAPTERS SET IN THE PAST GO BACKWARDS ALONG THE TIMELINE. Rated "M" for sensuality, violence and some disturbing material, and language.
1. Emergence Day: 0900 Dom, Marcus & Baird

***I accidentally erased the Emergence Day chapters while on vacation [and lost all my stats for them: NOOOOOO!] so I am re-publishing them as one chapter. FYI: I am also constantly editing chapters due to rampant perfectionism, but the changes are minor, so you don't have to worry about retro-fitting plot or dialogue.**

EMERGENCE DAY

[Ephyra, 0915 hours]

Dom was sleeping in. Or rather, Maria refused to wake him because it was a rare weekend off and he looked so peaceful.

She finished putting up her hair in the vanity mirror and turned back toward the bed. Dom had the sheets pulled up above his waist and one arm thrown over his head. His stubbled cheek was resting on the pillow, his mouth slightly open and soft with sleep. She resisted the urge to trail her fingers over his lips (her eyes skimmed down his body) or anywhere else, for that matter.

'_This is the reason you have two kids already,' _she reminded herself._ 'Let the man rest for once.'_

Dom huffed at something happening in his dream, making his abdomen flex briefly. Maria raised an appreciative eyebrow_. _She had an elaborate rating scale for how attractive he looked while asleep. _'I'd give that a 9.3 out of 10.'_ He snorted. _'Maybe a 9.2.'_

Maria went downstairs to make breakfast. She'd already sent the kids to her mother's house for the day, so she only needed to make breakfast for two. However, one of those two people was a bottomless pit. She made a fried egg and a bowl of oatmeal for herself, and a four-egg omelette, three pieces of toast, a quarter pound of bacon, another bowl of oatmeal and a glass of orange juice for her massive husband. As she waited for the last piece of bacon to finish turning brown, she tapped the spatula against the edge of the pan, thinking, _'Is it too soon for a third kid? Three is a good number. That way we'll have an oldest, a middle, and a youngest child. Perfect.' _She waggled her eyebrows._ 'And we could start working on it right now.' _She laughed out loud at herself. _'Damn, Maria, at least wait until after breakfast before you start molesting the poor man.'_

Maria arranged Dom's food on a large tray – her meal wouldn't fit with the rest – and took it upstairs. Her toe caught on the second step from the top. She did some fancy footwork and managed to not even slop the orange juice over the edge of the glass. _'Nice, Maria. That would be a good start to the day. "Good morning, honey. Your breakfast is on the floor in the hallway. Do you want to get busy, or should we clean it up first?"'_

She stopped in the doorway and her mouth went dry. Dom had rolled over on his stomach and the sheet was covering considerably less of him than before. He squirmed a little, a ripple of hard muscle starting at his shoulders and moving south. Clearly he'd been working on his score while she was gone. _'How does he do this to me? He's asleep, for crying out loud!'_ Maria decided he couldn't top that perfect 10, and it was time to wake him up. His dark eyelashes were just starting to flutter anyway.

"Dom." His eyelids fluttered again. "Dom? Dom, you awake? I brought you breakfast." She put the tray down on the night stand. "The kids are at my mother's, so we've got the whole day to ourselves." His deep brown eyes were open but not focused. "Dom, are you awake?" He blinked slowly but didn't respond. "Dom? Dom!"

"Huh? What?" he sat straight up in bed, nearly clipping her chin with the top of his head.

"Whoa, there!" Maria steadied him with her hands on his shoulders. "Sorry, honey, I couldn't tell if you were awake or not."

"Mmm." He ran a hand over his face and through his hair. Maria realized that touching his warm skin had been a bad move on her part. He was never going to get breakfast at the rate her blood pressure was rising.

She stepped back and tucked her traitorous hands behind herself. "Eggs, toast, bacon, oatmeal and orange juice."

Dom shook his head to clear it. "Thanks, baby." He reached for the orange juice, and when he sat back the sheet lost its tenuous hold on his dignity. Maria looked out the window over his head and tried to count the number of palm trees she could see from this angle.

Halfway through drinking his orange juice, Dom noticed her rapt attention to the foliage outside. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing." She kept her eyes straight ahead.

"Seriously, though." He took another sip.

She sighed. "A better question is what am I _not_ looking at?"

He paused in swallowing and tilted his head in that adorable way he had. Then he looked down at his birthday suit. He finished swallowing his mouthful of orange juice and looked back up at her. A wicked grin crossed his face and he put the glass aside and stood up.

'_Oh, Lordy, here comes that third kid.'_

Dominic stretched and flexed like a cat waking up from a nap. "Beautiful morning, isn't it?" he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Yes it is, darling." Two could play this game. "Would you like me to go downstairs and make a pot of coffee?" Maria deliberately did not look anywhere but his face. "We've got scones, too, I could warm up some of those if you like."

He caved immediately. "You're not going anywhere." Dom caught her by the wrist and pulled her tight against his body. "The coffee, the scones, and the whole damn breakfast can take a number." He kissed the spot just behind her ear and said, "It's been way too long since I was alone with my wife."

She put her arms around his neck and rested her temple against his jaw. "Yes it has, Dominic."

"Mmhmm," he said into her hair as he kissed his way down her neck.

"Dom?"

"Mmm?"

"What's going on outside?"

He turned his head toward the window.

Sometime in the last thirty second, the palm trees had been draped with a thick layer of ash. More flakes of immolated carbon drifted down, making it look like it was snowing outside.

They looked at each other.

"Check the phone line," he said, turning and yanking open the drawer with his boxers in it.

Maria ran to the stand in the hallway and put the receiver to her ear. Nothing. "There's no dial tone," she called to him.

She could hear drawers opening and closing forcefully. "I have to get to the base," he yelled.

"I'm on it!" she said.

Maria pounded down the stairs to the hall closet and yanked out Dom's "go" bag, the one with his armor and weapons inside. She upended the contents on the floor, snatched up the steel box with his pistol and knives inside and dialed open the safety lock.

Dom leapt down the stairs three at a time. He stepped into the supporting harness that Maria held out for him and strapped on the thigh plates. He shoved his feet into the boots and Maria slipped a combat knife into the sheath on the right one, then tightened the straps. "Good?"

"Good," Dom responded, shrugging on the chest piece. He held the front and back together while Maria slapped the circular seals into place and twisted them clockwise, making the gel layer expand and suction the armor to his torso. The blue lights came on. Dom pulled on the forearm greaves and Maria slung his tactical belt around his waist. She handed him the pistol and he checked the magazine before snapping it into the hip holster.

Maria heard the kitchen door crash open. Marcus's thunderous voice yelled, "Dom!"

"In here!" he answered, slipping another combat knife into the sheath mounted on the front of his shoulder.

"We need to get to base, now!"

"No shit, Marcus!"

Maria keyed open the Lancer case and hefted the huge weapon so Dom could take it. He checked the magazine, slapped it back in, and attached the sword-like bayonet to the end. Marcus burst through from the kitchen, locked and loaded. "You ready?"

"Yeah."

"Wait one." Maria clipped the canteen of water to Dom's belt.

He kissed her cheek. "Thanks, honey."

Maria dug her fingers into his unarmored bicep. "Dom. The kids."

Dom traded glances with Marcus. "We'll send someone over there, and they'll call you as soon as the phones are back up."

She let go. "Okay."

There was an explosion in the distance. A few bits of plaster rained down on them from the ceiling.

"The roads are gridlocked. We'll have to walk," Marcus said.

Dom crushed her to him with his free arm and kissed her in a very rough, very un-sexy way. "I'll call you as soon as I can."

"Right." She followed them through the front door and down the path to the gate.

Dom walked backwards for a few steps. "Stay inside!" He jogged after Marcus, who was shrinking rapidly into the distance. "Don't go over to your mother's!"

"Right." She watched her soldiers disappear into the shifting curtains of ash. "Okay."

[Kosoly Barracks, 0915]

Klaxons began blaring all over the compound. Baird's unit stumbled to a halt in the middle of their twentieth lap around the parade ground. Their drill sergeant slapped a hand to the tac/com in his ear. Baird hadn't thought the crusty old bastard could wedge that stick any farther up his ass, but the expression on his face proved him wrong.

There was a massive explosion in the distance that made the entire unit jump. "Frak!* What's going on out there?" asked the pimply-faced kid next to Baird. An angry-looking cloud of smoke jetted up into the atmosphere.

Baird shrugged, a lot more calmly than he felt. "You tell me, man, I only work here."*

"Listen up, grunts!" the sergeant hollered. Every Gear present snapped to attention, even Baird. "We are under attack from an unknown enemy. They are _not_ Indies." He paused. "Front-line reports strongly suggest they are not human."

'_Not human? What the hell? The COG is under attack by frakking aliens?'_ Baird's mind worked furiously. _'Where the hell did they come from? Surely_ _someone would have noticed a fleet of invading spaceships before now.'_

The brand-new soldiers began a cacophony of chattering questions, confusion and panic rising quickly.

"A-ten-HUT!" They reflexively snapped back into a silent formation at their sergeant's voice. "You are _Gears_, not a bunch of panicking civilians! You will not break formation unless I tell you to do so, even if the frakking sky is falling!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" they yelled enthusiastically. Many of them were clearly grateful at that moment to have such a hard-ass leader.

"You will not be facing the enemy head-on." They relaxed a fraction. "You greenhorns haven't even learned to do an active reload yet. Instead you will be assisting with the loading of ammunition into the supply APCs going to the front line."

There was another bone-rattling explosion, this time from a different area. The sergeant raised a hand to his tac/com. The soldiers remained in a very tense formation as he listened.

"Private Baird!" he barked.

Baird delivered a perfect "Sir, yes, sir!"

"Your file says you have extensive technical experience."

Baird grinned cockily. "Sir, yes, sir!"

"Then get that shit-eating grin off your face and hustle your sorry ass over to Control. They need extra information hubs set up ASAP."

"Sir, yes, sir!" Baird took off at a sprint. He got to avoid heavy labor, play with high-tech equipment, and aliens were invading. This was going to be fun.

When that first devastating attack was over he realized he hadn't thought about her once. That was definitely progress. Maybe he could survive without her after all.

**# # #**

*** Author's Note: Yes, those are references to "Battlestar Galactica" and "Aliens".  
Brace yourselves for the shameless plundering of one-liners from my favorite sci-fi materials.  
I'll try to keep them to a minimum, but sometimes I just can't help myself.**


	2. E-Day & 14 years 31 weeks: 1200 Marcus

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1030 hours]

"Control to Sergeant Fenix." Anya's voice came through his earpiece loud and clear.

Marcus pressed his tac/com. "Fenix here."

"Salton is reporting visual contact with an unknown group of civilians out in the uninhabited zone."

"Stranded?"

"Unknown. Visual contact was very brief, and they were camouflaged."

"Hostile?"

"Unknown."

"How many?"

"Unknown."

Marcus resisted rolling his eyes, but the irritation bled into his voice anyway. It had been a long, disturbing morning for Delta, digging another mass grave for several elderly civilians who had died overnight. "Is there anything you _do_ know, Anya?"

"I know that Delta's been ordered to take a Raven and recon the area, _Sergeant_." Any other couple, and the woman would have given the man a very cold shoulder that night, but Anya wasn't like that. She never held a grudge for more than a few minutes. Marcus felt like an asshole. "You are authorized to make contact if the civilians are non-combative," she added stiffly.

"Roger, Control." No one but Anya would have caught the apology in his slightly-less-gravelly voice. "We're on our way." Having a private conversation over an official comm channel was difficult, but over the years Marcus and Anya had elevated it to an art form. Marcus's emotionless upbringing meant their whole affair was based on silent looks and physical cues anyway.

Anya's bored, sing-song tone imitated a KR pilot giving the crew instructions. "Copy that, Delta. Good hunting. Control out."

That meant he was forgiven.

[Tyran wilderness, 1200 hours]

Naturally, it was Marcus's keen eyes that spotted the smoke first. "Dom!" he shouted over the roar of the chopper's blades. "Does that smoke look green to you?" Dom edged over and grasped a handle, leaning slightly out of the Raven's open door.

"Where?"

"Two o'clock, near the base of the second foothill. See it?"

"Okay, yeah, I see it now, but I can't tell what color."

Marcus pressed his ear piece. "Gettner, I might have something. Bring her around to –" he glanced at his watch's compass, "– bearing two six zero and look out for green smoke."

"Wilco, Fenix." The Raven banked swiftly toward his target.

As they flew closer Dom said, "Oh yeah, definitely green."

"Stay sharp, Dom, probably Stranded. Might be a trap."

"I'd almost be disappointed if there weren't one."

As they came around the side of the foothill, there was only one figure standing near the source of the smoke. A sniper rifle lay on the ground, far enough away that the stranger wouldn't be able to reach it without taking three or four very obvious steps. The figure waved its arms slowly over its head and then held them there. Even from the air Marcus's exceptional eyesight let him see the ejected magazine and the open chamber. Everything about this scene said _I'm not a threat_. Marcus huffed skeptically to himself. He never took any stranger's word for it.

"Gettner, set down two hundred yards from the smoke." Close enough to keep an eye on the sniper rifle, far enough away to make a non-scoped shot from cover more difficult.

The Raven was still four feet off the ground when Dom jumped out. Marcus, Cole and Carmine waited another few seconds until it set down. Sometimes Marcus wondered if Dom just liked being first on the ground, or if it was a commando thing drilled into him during his special ops training. Both options were equally likely.

"Dom, take point and look out for camouflaged civvies. Carmine, stay back with the Raven and use your binoculars. Cole, with me."

As Delta came closer, Marcus saw that the figure was vaguely female, wearing clothing that stood out on the open ground but would have made her indistinguishable in deep brush. She was still holding her gloved hands above her head, although her arms must have been shaking with the effort of doing it for so long. There was a hood overshadowing her features.

Dom halted. "Contact. 10 o'clock."

Marcus and Cole flipped the safeties off of their Lancers.

Marcus rumbled into his tac/com. "Carmine, what do you have?"

"Let me ... oh. Yeah, I see five children at your 10 o'clock, halfway up the foothill."

"Kids?"

"Affirmative, Sarge."

"Dom?"

"Yep, that's the movement I saw. Carmine, are you sure they're kids?"

"Affirmative. My visor's long-range telemetry says the head-to-body-to-limbs ratio means they are all between 5 and 11 years old."

"You know they're kids because your _helmet_ told you so?"

"It's a very useful feature. You would know that if you ever wore one."

"Zip it, Delta," Marcus snapped. His squad fell silent, content to let Marcus make the tough decisions. Dom was just fifty yards from the woman, Marcus and Cole another ten yards back. She now had just her forearms up, palms out. She was getting tired.

"Hold position, Delta." Marcus set his Lancer down next to Cole. He walked slowly toward the woman with his empty hands held out and to the side. Marcus was aware that he wasn't exactly cuddly-looking, but he tried to appear as non-threatening as possible, given what he had to work with.

Ten yards from her, he stopped and let his hands drop loosely to his sides. So did she.

"Good afternoon," she said.

Marcus almost lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

"I'm sure you have questions for me. I'd be more than happy to answer them." The formality was jarring.

"First, why don't you take that hood off and let me see you?"

She slowly raised her arms again and pushed back the mottled green and brown hood. Her features were disguised by artful smears of camouflage paint, but from the lack of gray in her hair Marcus estimated she was in her early thirties. She had an open, alert expression and light hazel eyes that reminded him of a fox. She waited for him to ask something.

"Your name?"

"Sharon Keller."

"Where are you from, Mrs. Keller?"

"Originally? Halvo Bay. Lately? Nowhere in particular."

He decided to go on the offensive. "We've spotted the kids up on the hill."

"Really? Which ones?" She seemed genuinely curious. "Whoever they are, they're going to get a talking to about sitting still."

"What do you mean, 'Which ones?'"

She cocked her head at him. "There are several dozen children up there. And twice as many adults."

Shit. This could go sideways very fast if she were telling the truth.

Marcus flicked his fingers at his side. Dom and Cole began backing up. The Keller woman followed them with her eyes, seeming almost amused. "How many people are with you?" he barked.

She widened her eyes at him sassily. "There's no need to get snippy,"- her eyes sized up the insignia on his bandana - "Sergeant. We've been looking for you for a long time."

"For me?" Marcus was tired of the notoriety that came with the name 'Fenix'.

Keller almost laughed. "Not you specifically, Sergeant. The COG." She narrowed her eyes at him. "You are Gears, right?" Her fox-like eyes sharpened. "If you're Stranded who've somehow managed to steal a COG helicopter, then you're in for a world of ... well, let's not get off on the wrong foot. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt." She stuck out her hand.

Marcus would have to step over the sniper rifle to shake hands with her. He squinted.

The woman smiled. "It's not rigged, if that's what you're wondering." She lowered her hand. "But you don't have to take my word for it."

"I'm not taking your word for anything, lady."

"And you shouldn't have to. You've got the superior bargaining position, Sergeant."

'_What does she mean? She has the home court advantage and up to 150 of her followers lying in cover_.' His forehead itched with the invisible touch of a hundred guns sighted down on the space between his eyebrows. "Perhaps you'd like to explain, Mrs. Keller."

"Certainly, Sergeant." She held a hand to her chest and then extended it behind her to indicate herself and the unseen crowd. "We're all friendlies here. I'd know the sound of a King Raven anywhere. I just couldn't believe it when we heard it way out here. Grubs never learned how to fly them." Her face fell a little bit then. "Honestly, I was beginning to worry there was any COG left at all. We've been living like nomads for years, avoiding the Grubs and Stranded even if it took us months out of our way. But by the time we got to Jacinto..."

"It was gone, yeah. Sorry about that."

Her confident demeanor faded, and for a moment, she just sounded very, very tired. "We've been looking for you. For far too long." It was hard to tell under the face paint, but she might have had a pleading expression. "We want to rejoin the COG."

Marcus kept his eyes on her and pressed his tac/com. "Fenix to Control."

"Control here."

"We found the civvies."

"Are they hostile?"

"Unconfirmed."

"Friendly?"

He paused. "Unconfirmed."

"How many?"

"Wait one." He lifted his hand away from his ear and asked Keller, "How many exactly?"

"Three hundred and twenty-six."

His nostrils flared. "I thought you said there were a couple dozen kids and twice as many adults."

"On _this _hill, yes. I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket. The other half of my people are nearby." She pointed to a small smoke grenade near the sniper rifle. "If I pop that purple smoke, they'll come out."

Marcus sighed. "Control, the leader says there are three hundred and twenty-six of them."

"Wow. I ... okay. Hold on." There was a rustling sound. "Colonel Hoffman's coming online."

Lovely.

"Fenix, did you say you've found three hundred civilians out in the middle of nowhere?"

"Three hundred and twenty-six, sir."

"Stranded?"

"Unconfirmed." Keller's lips pressed together. Marcus had the feeling she had guessed the question that went with that answer even though she couldn't hear Hoffman.

Hoffman hesitated. "Are there children?"

"Yes, sir."

"Visual confirmation on how many?"

"Carmine's spotted five so far. The leader says there are several dozen."

"Shit."

"Affirmative."

"Well, we can't just leave a bunch of kids out in the wasteland in the middle of winter."

"No, sir."

"Very well. Tell the leader to assemble everyone under ten and the most urgent medical cases. I'm authorizing cas-evac for them. We'll deal with able-bodied adults later."

"Yes, sir."

"I want you and their leader back to base ASAP. If she's the real deal, then she's got a lot of paperwork to do. Leave two squad members behind to assist with triage."

"Copy that, Colonel."

Anya came back on the line. "Here we go, Delta."

"Affirmative, Control. Fenix out."

**# # #**


	3. E-Day & 14 years 31 weeks: 1230 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1230 hours]

Baird was pulling a cart full of ill-gotten scrap metal down the main drag of Port Farrall, sweating from the effort in spite of the bitter cold. He didn't dare stop to rest because if the sweat cooled down it would rapidly leech away his body heat, and he'd be damned if he was going to end up in the med center being cussed out by Doc Hayman for giving himself hypothermia.

Wiping the sweat off his face repeatedly had left it much cleaner than usual, with the predictable result that every available female he passed gave his features an appreciative once-over. Of course, it didn't hurt that in the skills-based economy of the end of the world, Baird was a very, very rich man. He snorted. _'It always comes down to money, doesn't it?'_

A leggy woman who was obviously a prostitute leered at him from where she leaned against a wall, rolling her hips invitingly. Baird scoffed. "No thanks, sweet cheeks, I prefer my body disease-free."

The whore's face twisted. "Frak you." She spat at him, and Baird danced out of the way just in time. He went back to pulling his precious cargo, too tired to give her much attention.

"Like I said, no thanks." He tuned out her torrent of colorful language.

Sometimes – okay, a lot of times – Baird wished he could take advantage of the "amenities" offered by the breakdown of civilization, but all of his previous attempts had ended the same way: a flood of eidetic memories that made enjoying himself impossible. Every woman he had considered for a little down time was too short, too tall, too skinny, too curvaceous, too blonde, too dark, too foul-mouthed, too polite – the list went on. Even if he had been able to find a willing female with the right combination of height, proportions, coloring and sass, he doubted he'd be able to touch her. The flashbacks were just too powerful. He growled silently. Almost fifteen years later, and that callous bitch was still ruining his life.

'_I hope you're dead,'_ he thought.


	4. 2 weeks before E Day: 1900 Baird

2 WEEKS before E-DAY*

[Ephyra, 1900 hours]

Damon stood on the jade steps of the outrageously expensive hotel in his itchy new uniform, watching the crowds flow by. He was at complete loss for what to do with his last hours as a free man.

A long-legged brunette gave him the up-and-down. His ex had always told him he was handsome, but here was independent confirmation, and with perfect timing. This girl was gorgeous, clear-skinned and well-endowed. And, as it turned out after a few hours of drinking at the hotel bar, willing to go upstairs with him to his suite, a critical prerequisite for rebound sex.

Her disturbingly familiar hair proved to be a stumbling block, however. When he moved to kiss back of her neck as she unlocked his door, a whiff of freesia caught his attention. He jerked his head back. "Are you wearing perfume?" he asked.

She gave him an odd look as she set her purse on the foyer table. "Actually, no. I ran out last week, and it's expensive." She eyed him. "Why, are you offering to buy me some more?"

He ignored that. "What about your shampoo?"

The girl wrinkled her nose. "My shampoo?"

"Does it have freesia in it?"

She answered slowly. "Noooo, it's lilac. Are you feeling all right?"

He rubbed his forehead. He was starting to imagine things. "Yeah, sorry, just a little tired. You sure it's not freesia?"

She smirked. "It's not freesia. Sounds like we should get you into bed." She pulled him toward the massive bed by his uniform jacket and began unbuttoning it. He lowered his head to kiss her. Her lips felt strange, almost rubbery, and her lipstick coated his mouth with a waxy patina. He felt a rush of lust when her tongue thrust aggressively into his mouth, but then he caught himself starting to moan a familiar name against her lips.

He broke away. "Shit." He wiped his waxy mouth on the back of his hand, and it came away a disgustingly orangish red. He stared at it, and an unbidden thought reminded him that his ex only wore strawberry-flavored pink lipgloss. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit."

The girl stood hipshot, arms crossed and looking very, very pissed off. "What the hell is going on?"

He sighed, preferring to stare at the ornate ceiling rather than at her. "This isn't going to happen. Just go, okay?"

"What? You asshole, you're kicking me out? I can't believe this!"

Damon rolled his eyes and reached into his jacket pocket. He flipped open his wallet and pulled out a large bill, then hauled the girl to the door and slapped the money into her palm. "Here. Buy yourself some perfume." He tossed her purse at her and slammed the door in her angry, cussing face.

"Man, that girl can swear."

Damon flopped backwards onto the bed, grumbling and rubbing his face. '_Damn her. Damn her and her pink lipgloss and her freesia-scented shampoo and her brand-new husband. Callous bitch.'_ Unfortunately, his brief contact with tonight's girl had him frustrated in a way he hadn't been since before his sixteenth birthday. '_The first time we –'_

He jumped to his feet and started pacing, but the memory wouldn't leave him alone. _Her mouth. That green satin blouse. The taste of strawberries. His trembling hands and her uneven breathing._

"Damn it!" He kicked a fancy wooden chair across the room and it came to rest against a silk couch. "Damn it," he said more softly. '_You know what?' _he thought to himself. '_Forget her husband. Forget that he's in bed with her right now. I've got a hundred of memories of her in _my _bed, and I can remember them any damn time I want. Any damn time.' _He ground his teeth together in defiance. '_In fact, I could do it right now.'_

'_She was _mine_,_ _goddamn it. I had her first and no one can take that from me.'_

He closed his eyes. _The taste of strawberries. His trembling hands and her uneven breathing. That white lace bra which came unsnapped only after an eternity of fumbling._

When he was breathing hard enough, he began a fifteen-year habit of locking himself in a room and making love to his ex-girlfriend in his mind.

**# # #**

**Just a reminder to avoid confusion:  
Chapters set in the past go BACKWARDS from E-Day.**


	5. E Day & 14 years 31 weeks: 1300 Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 9 WEEKS

[Tyran wilderness, 1300 hours]

When Keller's group had finally assembled, they were a scruffy, dusty group of tired-looking individuals, but something about them besides just their camouflage didn't say "Stranded" to Marcus. The mottled clothes were patched and mis-matched, shoes held together with wire and string, hair obviously cut with knives instead of scissors, but ... ah, that was it: the eyes. No one had that feral look, the default Stranded expression that sized you up to see what you had and how much force it will take to get it from you. With Stranded you were an enemy until you proved yourself a friend, and even then it would be a toss-up. No, these people, while not exactly friendly-looking, didn't seem too upset to stand in front of squad of Gears out in the open while unarmed. It had been a long time since Marcus had met anyone outside of the COG who didn't mistrust Gears on sight.

The civilians looked at Keller expectantly, even confidently, and not a single one of them tensed for violence. Marcus almost felt himself relaxing too, but shook it off immediately. This was not the time to get complacent. They could just be very, very good actors. Time would tell. And the COG could use their numbers, not to mention their supplies. He looked the ragged group over again_. 'If they have any._'

He summoned his rusty high-society skills and stepped forward to shake the Keller woman's hand. "Sergeant Marcus Fenix, Delta Squad. Welcome back to the Coalition of Ordered Governments, Mrs. Keller."

The rest of Delta Squad was so startled by the cheer that went up from the civilians that they almost shouldered their Lancers. Marcus threw out a hand just in time to restrain them. The nomads were so busy hooting and hugging each other that they didn't notice Delta's collective twitch. Keller had, he saw, but she just gave him a wry twist of her lips that said she wasn't surprised. "It's good to be back, Sergeant."

Marcus took possession of her sniper rifle for the time being. She didn't seem to mind. "How have you managed to hide three hundred people from Stranded and Locust for so long?"

She smiled. "We're very, very sneaky." She hooked a thumb over her shoulder at the rejoicing nomads. "That's actually what took us so long. We only move under cover, or at night, and that takes time. A vanguard of scouts spread out in a fan in front of us." Marcus leaned back against the chopper, giving her his full attention. He wasn't opposed to getting infiltration tips from someone who'd been doing it successfully for going on ten years. "If they indicate it's safe, we advance, the most able-bodied forming a ring around the young and disabled. Then there are the dogs."

Marcus jerked upright. He couldn't help his breathing from quickening. The scar on his face itched fiercely. "What do you mean, dogs?" He ran his eyes over the people, then up to the treeline, scanning for wolf-like shapes.

"There's no danger to your squad, Sergeant. They aren't guard dogs. They're bloodhounds. Our boys can sniff out Locust a mile away."

He didn't relax one iota. "Where are they?"

"Waiting in the trees, obviously. Their handlers will escort them to the base." She smiled. "I don't think any of them would enjoy riding in a helicopter."

He didn't smile back, and not just because he wasn't a very expressive man. "I need to see what they're like."

"Certainly, Sergeant." She turned toward the wooded foothill and gave a complicated whistle. A huge brown shape popped out of the brush and ran through the crowd toward them. Marcus lifted his Lancer. Keller saw it and made a patting gesture toward the dog. It slowed to a walk and lumbered sedately toward them. The huge dog stopped and sat down at her feet, leaning heavily against Keller's leg. It panted up at her happily, and she smiled down at it and stroked its forehead with a thumb. Its droopy eyes closed in contentment.

Marcus lowered the Lancer but didn't take his finger off the trigger, which did not escape Keller's notice. "Bloodhounds, you said?" It was a massive but goofy-looking dog. From the shoulders forward, its skin hung off of it like it was two sizes too big. Its flews drooped just as much as its eyes and sported an impressive amount of drool. Its nose, ears and paws were ridiculously over-sized even for a hundred-pound animal, and it honestly didn't look very smart. The attack dogs in the Slab would have laughed it out of the building.

Marcus scowled at the beast. It panted dopily, thumping its tail against the snow-dusted ground.

"This is Rookie. He's only just now been put into service. It took forever to get him not to bay when he caught a Locust's scent, so he's a little behind the class."

"I can see that." Keller frowned at him like a mother who's been told her child will be riding the short bus to school.

"You have an issue with dogs, I assume?"

Marcus simply pointed to the terrible scar on his face.

"Ah," Keller said understandingly. "That would do it. If you want them to go away, do this." She flicked her fingers at the dog back-handed and said, "Hup!" The bloodhound closed its mouth unhappily, but walked off into the crowd. "They're all trained to do that."

"Good to know."

Cole sashayed up to the two of them. "Ain't you gonna introduce me to the nice lady, Marcus?"

"You already know her name, Cole."

"Yeah, but personal introductions are still more polite." He dipped his head toward Keller and shook her hand gently, aware of his considerable strength. "Private Augustus Cole, ma'am. Delta Squad."

"Do I know you? You look very familiar."

"I played Thrashball for the Cougars before the war."

"Oh, yeah! The Cole Train, right?"

"Yeah, that's right, baby. In the flesh."

"I'm a Sharks fan, myself."

Cole threw back his head and laughed. Keller grinned at him delightedly.

Dom came up to them. "Okay, we've got enough room for Mrs. Keller, three mothers with newborns and the guy with the heart condition."

"Cole, Carmine, you stay here with the rest and continue to rank the cas-evacs according to need. Dom and I will escort Mrs. Keller to the Port. Gettner will bring Sigma Squad back to assist, and Hoffman's sending out a convoy."

"Yes, sir," they acknowledged.

Cole helped the mothers and their newborns into the Raven's harnesses while Dom and Marcus slid the old man's makeshift stretcher between the two rows of seats.

"You know what engineers call helicopters, don't you?" Keller whispered to Dom so that the mothers couldn't hear.

Dom eyed her with caution. "No, what?"

"A million separate parts flying in close formation."

Dom barked out a laugh, partly from her jab at the unpredictability of Ravens, but mostly because out of the corner of his eye he had seen Marcus trying to stifle a snort with the back of his hand. Marcus quietly despised helicopters, probably because the ones he rode in usually ended up breaking, crashing, catching fire, or being swallowed by giant worms.

However brief, laughing was such a rarity for Marcus that it made Dom feel better than he had in a long time. Marcus caught Dom's eye sheepishly, and Dom guffawed even louder.

This lady was all right.

**# # #**

**If you caught the reference to ****Gears of War: Coalition's End****, leave a comment in your review.**


	6. 3 weeks before E Day: 1800 Marcus

3 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Ephyra, 1800 hours]

Marcus was waiting for Anya at an exclusive little restaurant as far away from the base as possible. After two years of sneaking around, he wanted very much to show Anya that she wasn't just his dirty little secret. He hoped that avoiding military personnel would minimize the chances of getting them both court-martialed for fraternization between the ranks. His fingers played nervously with the salad fork, and he was acutely aware of the contrast between his rough hand and the delicate silverware. He was high-society, sure, but despite the expensive clothes he knew he didn't look very posh. The other dinner guests were giving him sidelong glances, clearly wondering what a big slab of muscle like Marcus was doing in their fancy hidey-hole. Due to the average diner's difficulty getting a table here, no one recognized him even though he ate there regularly when he wanted some peace and quiet. Not to mention non-military food.

Marcus's usual wine steward approached the table. "Can I get you something, sir?"

"Whiskey, neat, if you don't mind." Marcus hesitated. Should he get a glass of wine for Anya? What if she never showed? He scolded himself. Anya was a lady; she would never stand someone up. "And a Riesling for the lady. The oldest you have."

The wine steward had known Marcus for ten years, so he felt comfortable asking, "The lady, sir?"

"Yes. My date."

The steward's face lit up. _'Finally!'_ he thought.

Marcus caught the delighted expression on the man's face. "I trust your staff can be discreet?" He gave the man his best glower, but Steven was unfazed, knowing Marcus as well as he did.

The wine steward straightened proudly. "Of course, sir. We will treat you and your lady friend with the utmost discretion and courtesy. We don't tolerate gossip about our most valued patrons."

Marcus softened his expression a fraction. "Thank you, Steven."

"You are very welcome, sir." He strode off to declare the good news about "our boy" to the staff, with a vehement admonishment against advertising the fact to anyone outside of the restaurant employees.

Another minute ticked by. Marcus wasn't surprised; he'd arrived a full half-hour early.

Anya appeared in the doorway.

In uniform, she was lovely. In the blue silk dress she wore tonight, she was radiant. He saw every eye in the place turn to Anya, and felt a brief stab of hot jealousy. _'Easy, Fenix,'_ he told himself.

She had a vulnerable look on her face as she scanned the restaurant for him. _'I did that,'_ he realized miserably. _'She really thought I'd get cold feet.'_ She saw him just as he was about to signal to her, and her expression melted into relief. Anya cast her eyes down shyly and made her way to his table. He stood and pulled out her chair for her. He could feel the atmosphere in the room become friendlier toward him as he pushed in her chair. The patrons obviously figured that if he was there with a woman as classy as Anya, he must be one of their peers. He shook his head inwardly. High society was disgustingly shallow.

He sat, and the wine steward appeared with their drinks before he could say anything. "Your waiter will be along shortly, Mr. Fenix. Miss," he nodded his head in acknowledgement of her. Anya glowed.

"This is Steven," Marcus said. "If the wine isn't to your liking, he'll bring you something else."

"Thank you, Steven," Anya said. She sounded absolutely regal even though Marcus knew it wasn't deliberate.

"Certainly, miss," Steven responded.

"Anya," Marcus supplied hastily. He might as well start demonstrating that he was glad to be seen with her. "The lady's name is Anya."

"We're pleased to have you with us this evening, Miss Anya." Steven smiled warmly. "William will be along in just a moment." He backed away politely.

Anya fiddled nervously with the stem of her wineglass, glancing at him from beneath her carefully mascara'd eyelashes. Her smoky eye shadow emphasized her light green eyes. Marcus felt a little bit off-balance, and he knew it wasn't the whiskey. "You don't like Riesling?" was all he could manage to say.

"Oh! I hadn't realized..." She took a delicate sip. Marcus watched her mouth touch the glass. She nodded, unaware of his scrutiny. "Yes, it's delicious."

Marcus nodded in satisfaction. He looked like a lumbering army grunt, but least he knew how to choose a wine. _'Thanks, Dad,'_ he thought.

A beat or two later, William appeared with a menu for Anya. Marcus already had it memorized.

"What would you like, Mr. Fenix?" He glanced approvingly at Anya. Marcus was increasingly glad he'd brought her here. The familiar staff was playing their part just like he'd hoped.

"The peppered steak, please." The waiter nodded, not needing to write anything down to remind himself.

"And for ...?" he pretended they didn't all know her name already, giving Marcus the perfect opening.

"My girlfriend, Anya," he said in a rush. She could cut him down if she wanted, but he had to say it.

He heard her breath catch for a moment. She stared at him with an incredulous expression. He nodded in the affirmative.

She returned her attention to the menu with obvious difficulty, suddenly inarticulate. "I'll have the – the –"

Mercifully, William cut in. "Tonight we are serving a lovely lobster frittata with truffles, if that is agreeable."

"Yes, thank you," she breathed gratefully. "That will do."

"Certainly, Miss Anya. Your meals will be ready in fifteen minutes." He left them alone together.

The silence that descended on their table was now much less awkward than it had been for the last two years. Marcus didn't feel like he was taking advantage of her affection toward him. That one word had meant more to her than he'd even realized. When they left the restaurant at last, she held onto his arm a little tighter than usual.

The after-dinner activities at her apartment were very lively.


	7. E Day & 14 years 31 weeks: 1400 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1400 hours]

Cole got the newborns, their mothers and the old man settled in with Doc Hayman, then went to the admin office to see what the Keller woman was up to. He was damned curious about how she had managed to keep hidden from the Stranded all those years, especially because she admitted to often sneaking into Stranded camps to steal non-food supplies from the brutal sons of bitches.

She was filling out paperwork in one of the side rooms just like he thought she'd be. She was still wearing the cleverly designed camouflage hoodie and pants, but she'd cleaned off most of the face paint. A few caked bits were stuck in her brown hair, but he imagined once she had showered it would come right out. "How's my favorite nomad?" he said loudly. For some reason, people liked it when he was loud. Probably they assumed it was confidence.

She smiled at him. "Buried in paperwork. Have you ever tried to fill out three hundred applications for citizenship?"

"Can't say that I have, Mrs. Keller."

"I don't recommend it. Please, call me Sharon. Mrs. Keller is my mother-in-law." Her golden eyes darkened for a moment. "Was my mother-in-law."

Cole had learned that _I'm sorry _had been said so many times it no longer had any meaning. Instead he replied, "That sucks." A frank acknowledgement of the general shittiness of the world was a little more palatable to people than empty platitudes.

"Yeah, it does suck. Thanks, Cole Train."

"Please, call me Cole. The Cole Train only comes out to play during firefights."

She smiled. "There are probably a lot of Thrashball plays you can use to flank the Locust."

"You got that right." He noticed a sketch on the sheet of scratch paper by her elbow. "What you got there?"

She ran an affectionate finger over the sketch. "Just an idea I had while my mind was wandering during this boring paperwork. It's an add-on that would make the ammunition machines produce bullets just a little bit faster. I figure the COG could put something like that to good use." She went back to the paperwork with a reluctant sigh.

"You're an engineer? Nice. Baird will want to pick your brain about a few things."

She halted in the middle of her signature and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Baird, huh? He have a first name?"

"Yeah. Damon." The woman let out a slow, shaky breath and put down her pen with exaggerated care. This time it was Cole's turn to look at her out of the corner of his eye. "Why, you know him?"

"Yes, I know Damon Baird. We grew up together. I'd rather steer clear of him if it's all the same to you."

"Why?" Cole asked. "I know he can be kind of a jerk sometimes, but—"

Sharon interrupted him by holding up her hand. "The last time I talked to Damon Baird was just before E-Day, when he beat my husband half to death."

Cole's head rocked back at that bombshell. He opened his mouth to say something disbelieving, so she continued. "Literally. James lost a kidney, the hearing in his left ear, three teeth and a liter of blood."

Cole's jaw shut with a snap, then fell open again a moment later. He found himself blinking rapidly and running a hand over his buzzed hair. "Man, I just ... I just ..."

"Can't believe he'd do something like that?" she finished for him. "Yeah, neither did I." Cole opened his mouth again, but once more Sharon beat him to the punch. "You want to know why, I'm sure. I think you'd better ask him. I didn't stick around to ask questions, and I'm not exactly an impartial witness." Her face softened a fraction. "I mean," she drew anxious circles over the sketch with her finger, "I know why he was angry to begin with, but I don't know specifically what tipped him over the edge."

"I should tell you that Baird's one of my best buddies. You'll have to forgive me if I want to get his side of the story first."

"Go ahead. He'll tell you the truth. Maybe not the whole truth, but he won't sugar-coat it either. Just – just warn me if he's coming, okay?"

"I don't think you're in any danger." He paused thoughtfully. "Your husband might be, though. Baird can hold a grudge like nobody's business."

"That won't be an issue," she said quietly. "James is dead."

"That sucks too."

She smiled a bit. "Yeah, it does."

Cole excused himself and went off to find Baird. He checked the main garage first. Sure enough, Baird was there, in the process of removing the cracked engine block from an Armadillo APC.

"So..." Cole began. Baird turned his head toward Cole, a blandly attentive look on his face as he continued to work on a stubborn bolt. "I met someone you used to know."

The corner of Baird's mouth quirked up. "You'll have to be a little more specific, Cole." He was smeared in thick engine grease up to his elbows, with tools hanging off every spare inch of his belt and his favorite goggles pushing up into his hairline. He looked so content that Cole almost dropped the subject. But he needed to know why Baird had almost committed cold-blooded murder. Cole felt momentarily ashamed that it had only taken one conversation with a complete stranger to fracture his absolute trust in Baird. But that hairline crack was there now, and if he didn't deal with it immediately, it might cause the kind of split-second hesitation in a firefight that could get them both killed.

Cole continued, hoping with everything he had that this Keller woman was simply off her rocker. God knew enough people had lost it over the course of this war.

"Sharon Keller."

Baird's blue eyes went wide and he collapsed onto the APC's grill like he'd been gut-punched. The sudden torque on the wrench caused it to slip off the stubborn bolt, and Baird's full weight drove his knuckles down the front of the engine block. Baird hissed, yanking his bleeding hand out and cradling it with the other.

"Damn, Baird! You all right?"

Baird stared at Cole, still wide-eyed, and shaking far more than the pain from his flayed knuckles would account for. "Sharon? You're sure she's Sharon Keller?"

"That's what she said her name was. Here, man, let me get that." Baird stared into space while Cole snatched up a clean rag and bound up his hand. Cole snuck glances at Baird's face between tying knots. "So you do know her?"

Baird looked like he was in shock, slumped awkwardly against the APC, deathly pale under the smears of grease and dirt. "Where is she?" he mumbled.

"Baird–" Cole began warningly.

Baird's eyes came into focus on Cole and he straightened up. "Where is she?"

"Listen–"

"No! Tell me where she is!" He was shaking like he'd just sprinted a mile.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

Baird bristled, and a dog-like snarl began to curl his lip. "Why the hell not?" His eyes narrowed, flashing dangerously.

Cole was a Thrashball player, a veteran Gear and had nearly eighty pounds on Baird. Still, he took a step back. Baird lowered his head like a bull about to charge, and Cole half-expected steam to come out of his flared nostrils.

"Is he with her?" Baird snapped.

Cole casually inched back a little more. A guy couldn't be too careful. "He, who?"

"James Keller. Her husband." Baird practically hissed the last word through his clenched teeth.

"No, Baird. She's a widow."

That brought Baird up short. He blinked rapidly, the rage melting away. "A widow? James is dead?" He turned away from Cole, bracing his hands on the edge of the APC's engine compartment. "James is dead," he repeated softly to himself. Baird hung his head. "God, no. Not James."

Cole started in surprise. A moment ago Baird had been spitting nails about the Kellers, and now he seemed almost crushed that one of them was dead. Cole moved so he could see Baird's face better. "Baird, what the hell is going on with you?"

Baird twitched slightly toward Cole but didn't turn to make eye contact. "James..." he took a deep breath. "James was my best friend in high school." He gripped the edge of the engine compartment tightly, not noticing the spreading blood on his bandage. "He stole something from me, and I was so angry..." he hung his head. "I nearly killed him right in front of her."

"Yeah, she mentioned that."

"Oh, she did, did she?" Baird looked up at Cole. There were so many emotions flickering across his face that Cole couldn't keep track of them all. "Did she tell you what he stole?"

"No, she said if I wanted details I should ask you. Said she wasn't exactly an impartial witness."

Baird blew out a huge breath. "He stole DENIS, my prototype robot."

"Oh. Shit." Baird loved machines more than he did any human being. Especially things of his own creation. That would explain a lot. Not excuse it, but explain some of it. "Yeah, I could see how that would make you a little homicidal."

"Tell me where she is, Cole. I need to find out about DENIS. I won't hurt her, I swear."

"All right," Cole said slowly. Baird would run into her eventually and Cole would rather be there to referee their first meeting. "I'll take you to her." He looked Baird over. "But are you sure you don't want to clean up first? You look like you rolled in a grease pit, and you're bleeding all over yourself."

Baird looked down at his dripping hand and smeared clothing as he shifted from foot to foot, clearly torn. "Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right." He glanced up at Cole with sudden alarm. "She's not going anywhere, is she?"

"Naw, baby, she's got nowhere else to go. Don't seem like she wants to, anyway. All her people are happy to be back with the COG. Got some of them settled in already."

"Okay." Baird nodded to himself. "Okay. I'll shower and find some clean clothes. Don't go anywhere."

"I'll wait right here." Cole watched Baird hustle off to the Gears' dormitories.


	8. 4 weeks before E Day: 1500 Baird

4 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Tollen, 1500 hours]

Damon lay on the cushy damask couch in the library of the empty house, trying to concentrate on a schematic he was working up. It was proving to be nearly impossible. He just couldn't concentrate with all the sharp thoughts whirling around in his head.

The Pendulum Wars were over. Damon was out of jail, and his parents had sent him to their remote vacation home near Tollen to keep away from the press. They were kinder to him than they had ever been because they were confident he would enlist as soon as the media frenzy died down. He should be calmer. Instead, he was still mad enough to kill something. Unfortunately, he didn't think he could get away with attempted murder twice, and now that the enemy had surrendered there would be no one to fight even if he did sign up for the military. _'Chicken-shit Indies. They couldn't have waited a couple of months to roll over and play dead?'_

He'd won some very satisfying fights in jail, but then his father had gotten him out on a technicality and pulled strings to get the arrest record expunged. The Bairds' squadron of lawyers said 'the plaintiff has declined to press further charges'. _'Pussy. I would have.'_

And with his girlfriend gone, it was like he'd lost an arm. And a leg. Hell, it felt like he'd been sawed in two, right down the middle. But she was off somewhere unknown with the man she'd chosen over him, leaving him there to live half a life, without her.

'_So what's a bloodthirsty eighteen-year-old with dwindling self-preservation instincts to do?'_ he wondered. _'I might as well get my inheritance. Think of what I could build with all that money.'_

He went down to the recruiting office and joined the army.


	9. E Day & 14 years 31 weeks: 1415 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1415 hours]

Sharon's hands were shaking. She told herself it was because her blood sugar was crashing, not the knowledge that Damon Baird was lurking around here somewhere. She put an empty ammo box on top of the stack of papers to keep the drafts that gusted through the building from blowing them away, and went in search of the mess hall.

She found Sergeant Fenix and Corporal Santiago there too. "How is the intake coming?" she asked once she had sat down with a bowl of venison stew and a bread roll.

Santiago was obviously the more talkative one. "It's going great, Mrs. Keller. Your people follow orders really well. Everyone who needed urgent medical care is at the med center, and the others are on their way in the convoy. Even the dogs."

"Shiny. I really appreciate you doing the cas-evacs for the urgent cases. I was pretty worried about them until I heard the chopper the other day. Took a while to persuade my people to let me pop smoke, but I convinced them I'd recognize the sound of a King Raven's rotor anywhere."

Dom nodded. He understood worry more than anyone. "We've got Gears setting up wall-tents for your people. When it comes to heat, those things leak like a sieve, so I recommend you keep everyone wrapped up in layers as well as using the electric heaters."

Marcus figured that was all she needed to know for now. "We'll be back later. I'll give you an update and show you to your quarters then," Marcus rumbled, nodding to Dom. They both got up to bus their trays.

"Thanks. I'll be in the admin office." She wrinkled her nose. "More paperwork."

"Oh, wait." Dom had nearly forgotten his usual routine, being that they weren't actually Stranded. He drew the picture from behind his breastplate. "Have you ever seen this woman?"

Keller's spoon paused just in front of her open mouth. She put it back in the bowl before the food fell off.

"Why do you have a picture of you and Mary?"

Dom froze. He was vaguely aware of Marcus's head snapping around. "Mary?" He drew a shaky breath, and the photo trembled slightly in his hand. "You mean Maria?" He and Marcus put their trays down carefully.

"No. I mean yes. I mean, my friend Mary looks a lot like that woman."

Dom shared a wide-eyed look with Marcus, who stepped closer to his side. "Please, Mrs. Keller, look carefully." He handed her the precious photo, chanting to himself in his head, '_Don't get your hopes up, don't get your hopes up, don't get your hopes up.'_

Keller took the photo delicately. She focused intently on it, clearly realizing how important this was to Dom.

'_Don't get your hopes up, don't get your hopes up, don't get your hopes up.' _The chant wasn't working. '_Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.' _He felt Marcus put a hand on his shoulder. '_Please God, please God, please, please, please, _please_ God...'_

Keller drew in a deep breath through her nose and held out the photo. Dom's hands were shaking so badly he couldn't get a grip on it. Marcus reached out gently and took it for him.

She looked at him frankly. "It could be her."

Even though Marcus's hand was pressing down on Dom's shoulder, he still felt like it was holding him up somehow. Dom laced his shaking fingers together and pressed his forehead against them, trying in vain to breathe normally.

She peered at him around his clenched hands. Her face swam, and Dom realized it was because he was getting close to tears. Marcus's hand tightened on his shoulder. All these years, all that praying, all those crushing disappointments. _'If it's not her this time, I don't think I can take any more of this.'_

"Mary has ... well, she has a lot of facial scars, so it's hard to tell. And, she's ... um ... she's not all there. If you know what I mean."

Dom bit his lips. "Tell me." He lifted his head.

Keller looked at him pityingly. Dom's gut clenched. It had been like this regarding Maria ever since E-Day. Even when it was good news, it was still bad.

"Mary was captured by the Grubs a while back. They tore up her face pretty bad, and they must have ... they did something to her brain." Dom began to feel ill. "She's got a scar all the way around the top of her head, like from a lobotomy." Keller began to look more and more concerned, but seemed to know that he needed to be prepared for the worst, even if it wasn't his wife. "She doesn't remember much. And forming new memories is hard for her." She paused, considering. "She does talk a lot about a guy named Donny." Marcus's hand tightened like a vise.

He barely had enough saliva to form words. "Dom," he managed. "My name is Dom. Dominic."

Her face lit up. "Holy crap!"

Dom turned unsteadily to face Marcus. His jaw worked, but the words wouldn't come. "Marcus–" he said desperately. Marcus locked his steady gray eyes on Dom's and tucked the photo back in its hiding spot.

"Mrs. Keller–" Marcus began.

"Just Sharon, please." She shoved her chair back from the table and stood up, her face still shining, and came around to put a hand on Dom's arm. "If you're 'Donny,' then you are exactly who she needs right now." She nodded briskly to Marcus. "Let's go."

**# # #**

**Kudos if you noticed the reference to "Firefly".**


	10. 5 weeks before EDay: 1800 Dom and Marcus

5 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Ephyra, 1800 hours]

After all the stresses of watching people burn to death under the Hammer of Dawn, the announcement of a cease-fire after 79 years of constant attack and counter-attack, followed immediately by a lethal ambush on C Company from a group of Indie hold-outs, Dom was more than ready to get home to his wife and kids. Marcus was driving, and he had that super-serious look on his face that he always got when he was thinking about Anya.

"You should ask her out."

Marcus didn't take his eyes from the road. "Out?"

"Yeah, 'out', Marcus. As in a date."

"We see each other plenty."

"You see each other only when you personally feel like it, and even then pretty much all you do is have sex."

Marcus sighed. "I'm beginning to wish I hadn't told you about me and her."

"I would have guessed it anyway. Listen, Marcus, I'm serious. She's going to start thinking that all you want is sex; that she doesn't mean anything to you beyond that."

"That's not how she's wired. She's Anya. She wouldn't think that about me."

"She will eventually. You want to head this off at the pass. Living with Maria has taught me that an ounce of prevention is worth a frigging truckload of cure."

"She'll be fine." Marcus was starting to look a little worried.

"She won't, not if you carry on like this. Look at it objectively: you haven't told anyone except me, you've never been on a date, you never stay the night, you've never given her anything – not even a birthday card – and you don't talk about anything except work. If it weren't for the fact that you're sleeping with her, you wouldn't have any relationship at all. Everything else aside, that's just goddamn rude, and your parents raised you to be a gentleman."

Marcus looked grim. "You really think one date will fix all that?"

"Hell, yes. Coming from you, a little gesture will go a long way. I'm not saying you should recite poetry or go horseback riding or write her a symphony," Marcus's mouth curved up a bit at the mental image of him doing any of those things. "Just arrange to eat at the same table with her in public. Okay? If you're worried about an officer seeing you fraternizing, pick somewhere on the other side of town that's way too expensive for a military salary."

Dom could see Marcus was mulling it over, weighing the pros and cons carefully. Dom guessed that the "pro" column was pretty much just Anya.

"Okay."

"Yeah?" When Marcus said that, Dom realized how little faith he'd had in his short speech. Normally getting Marcus to do something he didn't want to do was like pushing a bag of wet cement up a hill.

"That's great!" Marcus cut his eyes sideways at Dom. "Don't worry, I'm not going to be taking pictures from the shadows or anything. I won't even tell Maria if you don't want me to."

"You can tell Maria. I don't want you to have to keep secrets from your wife."

"Thanks."

They pulled up to Dom's villa-style house. He was standing in the open front door with no memory of getting out of the car and walking up the path. "Maria?" he called. Dom heard the thunder of normally dainty feet coming from the kitchen at the back of the house. Maria rounded the corner and launched herself at Dom. It would have knocked him down the steps, but since this was always how she greeted him when he came home from deployment, he was braced and ready for her. He hefted her up and she wrapped her legs and arms around him, kissing him like she was trying to draw the breath out of his lungs.

Finally she sat back against the arms circling her hips and smiled at him. "Hello to you too," Dom said.

"Good enough?" Maria fluttered her eyelashes.

"I'd give it an eight point eight."

Maria looked insulted. "An eight point eight? How did I miss a full point and two tenths?"

"You didn't grab my ass."

She laughed. "That's because Marcus is standing behind you."

Dom jumped. "Oh, shit!" He looked back outside. Marcus was lounging against his car, concentrating intently on re-arranging the cards in his wallet. He was always embarrassed by lavish displays of affection. His parents hadn't been big into touching or expressing emotions, and since he hadn't met the Santiagos until he was ten, he had never been able to loosen up. The Fenix stoicism was too deeply engrained. "Sorry, Marcus, I forgot you were there for a second."

"No offense taken, Dom."

Maria climbed down from her perch on Dom. "Come inside, Marcus."

"Thanks, Maria, but I think I'll just go home."

"But you have to stay, I set your place at the table already. The kids would be so disappointed."

"I really should—"

"Marcus!" She put her hands on her hips. It was her "Stern Mother" voice, and even winners of Embry Stars were not immune to its power.

"All right."

"Wonderful! Come in and sit down. Dom, would you go get the kids from upstairs?"

"Sure thing, baby." He kissed her silky cheek, lingering a little longer than necessary. She trailed a hand down his arm as he turned to go up the stairs, and his blood sang.

He really hoped Marcus wouldn't stay long after dinner.


	11. E Day & 14 years 31 weeks: 1430 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1430 hours]

After Baird had cleaned up and looted his bunkmate's footlocker for a clean shirt and jacket, Cole took him to the admin office. Baird halted on the threshold of the building, blinking rapidly.

"You all right, Baird?"

"Yeah, it's just – I just – How do you apologize to someone for almost killing their spouse?"

"I'm guessing you start with 'I'm sorry' and go from there."

"This is serious, Cole."

"I know that. Listen, I'll be right there with you. Just avoid saying anything along the lines of 'Well, he really did deserve it,' or 'Too bad he's dead now, huh?' and you'll do fine."

Baird blew out a breath that turned immediately into a puff of frost. He nodded. "Okay. Okay, let's do this."

Cole led him along to the filing room where Sharon had been doing paperwork. She wasn't there.

"Dammit, Cole. I thought you said she was here."

"She was. Past tense. I don't have nomad radar, okay? Though that would be pretty awesome."

"Cole!"

"All right, all right. Keep your panties on." Cole stuck his head into another room. "Anybody know where Sharon Keller went?"

A clerk said, "I think she went to go eat."

"Thanks, my man."

"No problem, Cole Train!" It was always good to meet a fan.

"Come on, come on, let's get to the mess hall already." Baird was practically pulling on his sleeve.

This time it was Baird leading Cole, and he didn't stop on the threshold. The mess hall was half full, which meant they had to scan a crowd of over a hundred just to find out she wasn't here either.

"God damn it! Where is she?" Baird paced a figure eight back and forth in front of Cole, one hand on his hip and the other rubbing his forehead beneath the goggles.

"I dunno, Baird, she probably went to see to some of her people."

"And where are they?"

"I think they set up some wall-tents in the new sector."

"Let's go."

Cole sighed as he followed Baird. Not that he didn't enjoy a brisk walk in the cold winter air, but Baird's irritability was getting old fast. This wasn't his normal frak-the-world attitude. Baird was getting wound up tighter and tighter with every step, and it was starting to make Cole tense too.

There was no Sharon in any of the tents, either.

"_God_—"

"—damn it. Yeah, we know, Baird." Cole thought he saw his surly friend stamp his foot like a child, but he wouldn't swear to it.

Baird went outside the last tent and kicked over an old burn barrel, scattering ash over the packed snow. People gave him sideways looks and crossed over to the other side of the street.

"Man, you need to calm the hell down. She's here somewhere and you'll run into her eventually. Just chill."

"Chill? I can't chill. Don't tell me to chill." Baird's voice was climbing higher up the register with every word. "Chilling is not on the agenda!" He strode away from Cole.

"Where are you going?" Cole caught up with him.

"Back to the garage to beat the shit out of some scrap metal."

"That actually sounds like a good plan."

Baird snorted. "So glad to have your approval, Mr. Principal."

"Hey now, I've been trying to help you."

"Yeah, I know. Look, I'm sorry, I just – knowing she's here has brought back a lot of unpleasant memories, you know? And they won't go away until I've talked to her, okay? I need to find out about DENIS."

"I get that. I do. But if you go in there guns blazing she's not going to want to hear what you have to say, all right?"

"Okay, okay. Fine." Baird strode into the garage, pulled out a flat piece of tin and placed it over some kind of iron mold. Then he did indeed start beating the shit out of it with a mallet. _Whang._ It sounded like someone banging two trashcan lids together. _Whang._ "I'll see you later—" _Whang._ "—Cole." _Whang._ "We'll try again in—" _Whang._ "—a couple of hours."

"Sounds good!" Cole shouted over the racket. He turned to leave. A very young Gear skidded to a stop in front of the open door. "Cole Train! I mean, Private Cole!"

"Yeah, kid." _Whang._ "What do you need?" _Whang._

"Colonel Hoffman wants you and Corporal Baird to—" _Whang._ "—help Mataki with the—" _Whang, whang, whang!_

"BAIRD! Give it a rest! The kid's trying to pass on orders."

"Fine." Baird tossed the mallet on a workbench and glared at the misshapen metal half-folded around the mold.

"Go ahead, kid."

"Colonel Hoffman would like you two to help Sergeant Mataki carve up the frozen deer."

Baird scoffed. "And how are we supposed to cut up three hundred pounds of meat that's frozen solid?"

"Mataki said to bring your Lancers. The ones with the chainsaw bayonets."

"That might be more therapeutic than hammering metal." Baird pulled on a pair of gloves.

"All right! Let's do this." Cole decided he would take whatever he could get with Baird today, and sawing up non-Locust carcasses for a change actually did sound like fun. They picked up their ever-present Lancers and followed the kid to Bernie's slaughterhouse.


	12. E Day & 14 years 31 weeks: 1435 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1435 hours]

As always during the day, the med center was a cacophony of noise: voices calling out medication dosages, the clatter of surgical instruments, the stifled moaning of the wounded ... it was getting to Dom in a way it never had before, knowing that the woman who might very well be his wife was shoehorned into this chaos somewhere.

A quick question to the charge nurse got them the location of the large room assigned to the nomads awaiting out-processing. Dom forced himself not to sprint there. A running Gear bursting into a room in full armor wouldn't be a very good first impression.

Outside the shuttered window, Sharon laid a restraining hand on his arm. If Dom's parents hadn't drummed manners into him so thoroughly, he would have shoved her aside. "Listen, Dom, she's better than when we found her, but she's still in bad shape. Don't expect her to look like the woman you remember, okay?"

He nodded, looking past her toward the so-close door. Marcus indicated that Dom should take off his chest pieces and forearm greaves, and helped Dom remove them. It made him look only slightly less intimidating.

"I mean it, Dom. Most people find it pretty shocking the first time they see her."

Dom glanced down at her momentarily. "I don't care. I don't care, I need to see her. I need to see her _now_."

Sharon blew out a breath. "Okay, then, let's go inside."

There were about a dozen people lying on cots and thin pads, so it took a moment to spot Mary. "There." Sharon pointed to a small blanket-shrouded figure huddled in a corner.

She looked half dead. In addition to the lobotomy scar showing through her patchy black hair, there were three broad claw marks that ran diagonally from her hairline down through her right cheek. The eye in that socket was a milky white. There was a vertical slash that cut through both lips on the left side, and a crescent-shaped scar on her left cheekbone.

She was skeletally thin, practically comatose, and without a doubt Maria Santiago.


	13. E Day plus 14 years 31 weeks: 1436 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1436 hours]

"Maria!" Dom's shout startled the other nomads in the room, but they settled down again at a gesture from Sharon. Dom fell to his knees beside Maria and wrapped himself around her. "Oh my God. Maria." He kept leaning away from her and then clutching her to him again, clearly torn between holding her and looking at her. "Maria, Maria, Maria. Oh God, Maria," he chanted, as though he couldn't say her name enough.

Everyone in the room looked away, not wanting to intrude on such an emotional moment.

Marcus was breathing deeply and had turned to the wall, probably to keep anyone from seeing whatever look was on his face.

Dom kissed her forehead, her hair, her forehead again, both cheeks and between her eyes. Sharon noticed that he avoided the dazed woman's mouth. Even in what must be a chaos of conflicting emotions, he wouldn't press a disabled woman for contact that was too intimate. Sharon's already high respect for the man jumped up a few notches. Through all this, Maria made very little movement of her own, hardly aware of him. She was obviously off somewhere in her own little world, and would have to be coaxed back out.

Sharon knelt next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Maria?" Maria gave no sign that she had heard Sharon. "Maria?" Still nothing.

Sharon looked up at Dom, who was silent now, but completely soaked with tears from eyes to chin. "Her reaction times are about a second or two slower than most people's, and she has a hard time focusing on objects more than a few feet away. It just takes her a little longer to process things." He nodded shakily. Sharon jiggled Maria's shoulder gently and used the name the woman had given when they'd gotten her to talk for the first time. "Mary?"

After a pause, Maria turned her face toward Sharon. "Hmmm?" Dom screwed his eyes shut at his wife's voice.

"Mary, darling, I need you to look at me."

It took a few moments, but Maria focused her good eye on Sharon's face. A beatific smile spread across her cheeks, the hideous scars pulling on the fabric of her expression like misplaced seams. "Shar'n," she slurred sleepily.

"Yes, Mary, it's Sharon." Maria pulled a hand free of her blanket and touched Sharon's cheek gently, like a very young child. Sharon took the hand and held on to it. "Mary, there's someone I want you to meet." Maria tilted her head curiously.

"A new friend?" she asked.

"No, Mary, an _old_ friend."

"An old friend," Maria repeated. "Good. I like meeting old friends."

"Yes, meeting old friends is fun, isn't it?"

"Meeting old friends is fun," Maria echoed. Dom choked, realizing just how badly Maria's brain had been damaged. Marcus hunched his shoulders.

Sharon raised her eyebrows at Dom, clearly asking if he wanted her to continue. Dom nodded shakily.

"Mary, do you remember telling me about Donny?"

Maria smiled brilliantly. Her straight white teeth were still intact. "Donny. He smells like the earth. And col – colo –" she fumbled with the complex word.

Sharon provided it for her. "Cologne."

"Yes, cologne. He smells like the earth and cologne." Dom sucked in a hopeful breath. Marcus straightened up but didn't turn around.

"That's right, Mary." She held up a finger in front of Maria's eyes. "Look here, Mary." Maria squinted at the digit, her brown eye tightening more than the white one. "I want you to follow my finger, okay?"

"Okay."

Sharon slowly moved the finger sideways, Maria's eyes following its path, and Sharon brought it to rest against Dom's cheek. "This is Donny." Maria finally focused on the face of the man holding her. "Your old friend Donny."

Dom was at a loss for words. "I ... Maria, I ..." Everything he'd wanted to say to her in the last ten years tried to get out all at once, the words jamming up in his throat. "I ran out of cologne," he finished lamely.

Maria smiled lazily. "You still smell like the earth, though."

Dom's expression was half pain and half joy. "Yeah, that's because I'm dirty, sweetheart." It was true; the tears had left obvious clean streaks down his grimy face.

Maria giggled. Sharon looked shocked. "She's never done _that_ before."

Marcus finally turned around. He bent down and put a hand on Dom's shoulder. Dom turned his head slightly but didn't take his eyes off Maria. "Dom, I'm going to find Hoffman and get you a couple of days off, okay?"

"Okay, Marcus."

"Mark!" Maria chirped suddenly. They all blinked in surprise. "Mark, Mark, Mark." She tapped Dom's chin. "Mark is an old friend, too." She rumpled her brow. "But he doesn't smell as good as you do."

Dom barked out a surprised laugh. Maria jerked once at the loud noise, eyes wide, and then she smiled again once she had processed the sound. "Am I funny, Donny?"

"Yeah, baby, you're funny."

She nestled her scarred head under Dom's chin, not seeming to mind the scratchy woolen shirt. She began playing with the COG tags lying on his chest. "I'm a funny girl," she said to herself. Dom closed his eyes.

"Ask Hoffman for at least a week," he told Marcus.

"You got it, Dom. Whatever you need." Marcus gave Dom's shoulder a final pat and strode off in search of the colonel, relieved to finally have a way to make himself useful.

Sharon arranged a bed of blankets for them. He laid Maria gingerly down onto it, left hand cradling her head, and then quietly removed the rest of his weapons and armor. He carefully laid himself down at Maria's side between her and the door and put his right arm under her head. Sharon covered them with some more blankets and then slipped away. Maria rested her head on his wide bicep and stroked his COG tags again. "You're very warm," she said.

"Yes, baby, I am." He ran his palm in soothing circles on her back.

Her scarred mouth trembled a bit, and she gripped the tags tightly. "I'm always so cold."

Dom tucked the blankets around her with his free arm. "Not anymore, honey. Not while I'm here."

Maria looked up at him hopefully. "You're going to stay?"

"Yeah, Maria. I'm going to stay."

"I'd like that," she said, and Dom saw a momentary flicker of intelligence pass through her good eye. "I'd like that very much." She lay her head back down and started humming to herself as she fiddled with his tags. Dom nearly lost it.

It was the tune to a nursery rhyme Maria had sung to their children every night before E-Day.

It took a full minute before he'd pulled himself together enough to reply. "I'd like that, too."


	14. E Day plus 14 years 31 weeks: 1530 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1530 hours]

Sharon sat in the med center's lobby, filling in blanks and checking boxes, bored out of her ever-loving mind.

She had left Dom to cuddle with his wife about an hour ago and gone to the desk to request "Mary" not be discharged for several more hours. The name change would have to wait until Maria's application for citizenship was approved, and then her relationship to Dom could be verified. The charge nurse agreed, then hefted a three-inch binder stuffed to the gills onto the counter. "You can fill out these medical permission forms. Some of your people don't have a guardian, so they need your go-ahead for invasive medical procedures. That's one power-of-attorney declaration in duplicate and one liability waiver in triplicate for each person."

Sharon eyed the monstrosity. "You've got to be joking."

The nurse gave her an unsympathetic smile. "Welcome to my world, doll."

Sharon wrestled the thing into her arms. "The COG does love its paperwork."

"You can say that again. Use that long table in the lobby."

She'd been working steadily for an hour, and her hand was just starting to cramp. She heard the scuffing of boots stopping suddenly and a man's irritated voice complaining, "Hey, loser, watch where you're going!" She looked up.

An enormous soldier stood in the middle of the lobby. He had the over-developed musculature of a Gear, the short-cropped haircut of a Gear, and Damon's face.

He was much taller than he'd been at eighteen and nearly twice the mass. His face was broader and rougher-skinned, of course, and those light blue eyes were accented by crow's feet. '_He's only thirty-three!' _she thought_. 'How did he age so fast?'_ Then she chided herself. '_You don't exactly look like a teenager yourself, Sharon. Fifteen years of war hasn't been kind to anyone.'_

While she studied him, Damon simply stood there motionless. Expressionless. She saw Private Cole behind him, frowning slightly as he looked back and forth between them. Cole lifted a hand to Damon's shoulder to ask him something. That movement focused her attention on the Lancer in Damon's bloody hand.

Sharon fell backward over her chair trying to get away. '_Shit, shit, shit! What did you _think_ was going to happen?'_ she yelled at herself. The clatter of her chair tipping over seemed to startle Damon into action. He leapt at her. Her guts clenched in abject fear. The assault rifle's chainsaw still had blood and gore in its teeth, and what must be a stringy bit of someone's entrails tangled in its chain.

Her back slammed into the rear wall of the lobby and she felt her way along it toward the emergency exit as she retreated sideways, not daring to take her eyes off him. Now that she was looking for it she saw that his dark jacket was also flecked with blood, and there were a few thin red streaks on the underside of his jaw and more in his hair.

The long table was the only obstacle between them now. Cole was saying something but it got lost in the roaring of blood in her ears. Damon dropped the Lancer and shoved at the table a few times, but the fallen folding chair had gotten tangled in its heavy metal struts and it wouldn't slide. Everyone in the lobby scooted away from the scene they were making. She saw him snarl at the table, and the fabric of the jacket pulled tight over his huge arms as he gripped the offending table and simply flung the fifty pounds of furniture end over end out of his way.

Sharon turned and ran.


	15. 5 weeks before E Day: 0730 Baird

5 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Halvo Bay, 0730 hours]

Damon lunged at James, catching the smaller 18-year-old by his collar and twisting it so that his feet barely touched the ground. "You thieving son of a bitch!" Damon had gained a little height and a lot of muscle over the last half year, and he used every inch and pound to his advantage. Remembering his father's advice, he avoided breaking any bones in his hand by slamming James in the face with his elbow instead. James's jaw dislocated with the satisfying _pop_ of breaking cartilage. Damon let go of his collar, and the other teenager fell to his knees on the lawn, cradling his face.

Damon shoved over him onto his back, then wound up and kicked him again and again in the ribs until he heard something snap. James curled in on himself and screamed in agony.

He heard Sharon screaming too. She had dropped the call to Emergency and run to the door. "Damon, stop! You're killing him!"

He spat at her, "Even if I make you a widow you'll still get DENIS and his money, you _frakking WHORE!_" He kicked James viciously in the head. James made a _hunnnh _sound, clinging tenuously to consciousness.

"You're not a murderer! Don't do this!"

"You don't know me anymore, Sharon!" Damon stomped on James's side a few more times for good measure, then lifted him by his belt and collar and slammed him into courtyard wall. A punch to James's groin made him dry-heave in a very gratifying manner. Damon hauled him upright and shoved his face close to James's, mindful of the blood sputtering from James's lips. "Nobody steals from a Baird," he snarled. He pulled James forward slightly and then slammed him once more into the wall. James's head make a sickening, muffled thud when it connected with the carved limestone.

"Damon, please, he's going to be a father!"

Damon pulled back the right hook he had aimed up into James's belly. James was half-conscious, still upright only because he was wedged between Damon's left-handed grip on his collar and the wall at his back. Blood was trickling out of his left ear. Damon lowered his arm a little. James's head fell forward, and his body weight leaned heavily on the fist pushing into his sternum. He choked a bit, then coughed out a couple of teeth and enough blood to completely coat Damon's forearm with crimson.

Still bracing James, Damon looked over to Sharon, who was outlined in the light from the foyer. "A father?"

"Yes!" she sobbed. "Please, Damon, stop hurting him."

He looked at James again. A gash on the back of James's head was bleeding copiously, staining his white night-shirt with a broad red stripe all the way down to his waist. Damon let him fall at his feet. He stared at the crumpled figure. "What's its name going to be?"

"Her. It's a girl." Sharon's voice shook. "Her name is Grace."

"Grace," he repeated. Not the kind of name he would have chosen for a kid. Of course, he would have wanted a boy anyway. Boys could take more punishment.

He shook his head, relenting. "Fine, I'm letting him go. Your daughter's going to need him."

He walked over to sit on the marble bench and stare at the burbling fountain until the sirens wailed up to the front gate. He never looked at Sharon again, not even when the police muscled him into the patrol car.


	16. E Day plus 14 years 31 weeks: 1535 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1535]

Cole had picked Baird up bodily and restrained the kicking, cussing soldier until Marcus and Anya arrived. The civvies and Gears gathered around found this very entertaining. Baird stopped struggling when he saw Marcus's enraged face, and Cole set him back down.

"Baird. In. Now." Baird stomped unhappily into the indicated room and threw himself down in a chair. Marcus paced like a panther in a zoo while a nurse closed up Baird's split knuckles with surgical glue. As soon as she left, Anya shut the door and Marcus pounced.

"What the hell did you do to this woman?"

"I sort of kicked her husband's ass a long time ago." Although Baird didn't think Marcus would actually beat answers out of a fellow Gear, he preferred to leave that theory untested.

"How badly?"

"Badly."

"How badly?" Marcus repeated, dragging the words out this time.

Baird winced. "He may or may not have lost a kidney."

"Dear God in Heaven, Baird!" Anya exclaimed. "I know you have a temper, but that was over the line."

"I _know_, all right? I was there. There were ... extenuating circumstances."

Marcus flipped a chair around backwards and scooted it close to Baird as he sat down, his scarred face far too close for Baird's comfort. "What circumstances?"

"He stole my robot."

"Oh," said Anya.

Marcus agreed. "Yeah, that would do it." He sat back and crossed his arms on the back of the chair.

"We have to find her." Baird told them.

Anya nodded. "We're going to have a riot on our hands if the nomads find out you're terrorizing her."

"I'm not 'terrorizing' her! And it's not just about keeping the nomads happy. We're going to need her. She's smart."

That was an extraordinary compliment coming from Baird. Anya raised her eyebrows. "How smart?"

Baird shifted uncomfortably.

Anya's eyes opened wide. "As smart as you?"

His mouth pressed into a thin line.

Anya gaped. "_Smarter_ than you?"

Baird crossed his arms defensively.

"Holy shit," Marcus cursed in surprise.

"Baird, I need to know, and not just out of morbid curiosity." He snorted at her skeptically. "I need to know how much access and materials I could give her once we've calmed her down."

Baird looked down at the floor. "JACK's cloaking technology is based on her work."

"Holy shit," Marcus cursed again.

Baird glared at him. "You have such a way with words."

Anya couldn't help herself. "But this is great!" Marcus nodded in agreement. "No offense, Baird, but there isn't enough of you to go around, and engineers are in short supply these days." She jumped to her feet and started making notes on a random clipboard as she paced. "I've got a whole backlog of high-tech stuff that needs doing."

Marcus went straight to the source of the problem, like always. "Baird, do you think you can cooperate with her?"

"I don't know. There's a lot of bad blood between us. Literally, in some cases."

"But you were able to in the past?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we worked together a lot. She designed things and I made them work." His face became unreadable. "Concept and proof-of-concept. We were a good team."

Anya put it together. "Then her husband broke up the band, and they took the robot with them."

"Wait a second," Marcus sat forward suddenly. "If she designed JACK's cloaking system, does that mean she could have _more_ cloaking devices?" Anya and Baird stopped moving. Marcus's expression darkened. "You mean there is an infiltration expert with a serious grudge against Baird sneaking around this base with God-knows-how-many _cloaked tactical robots_?"

Baird couldn't even blink.

Marcus leapt to his feet, snatching up his Lancer. "Goddammit, Baird, this would have been helpful to know earlier!"

"I didn't think of it earlier!" Baird backed himself into a corner, fumbling for his sidearm.

Even Anya was upset with him. "For a genius, you can sure be a frigging _moron_ sometimes." She pressed her hand to her tac/com and started transmitting. "Lieutenant Stroud to Control. Inform all security personnel that we have an orange alert." Red was reserved for Locust attacks.

Baird snatched her hand away from her ear. "She'll be monitoring the comm channels," he hissed.

"Okay." She pulled her hand free and pushed the button again. "We need to find the nomad leader, Sharon Keller. There's a problem with one of her people." She sighed at what she was about to do. "Tell her Maria Santiago needs her right away in the central tent."


	17. 5 weeks before E Day: 0700 Marcus

5 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Ephyra, 0700]

Anya was supposed to be preparing for her part in that morning's Command and Control sit-rep for the return of the 26th Royal Tyran Infantry to Ephyra, but all she could think about was breaking it off with Marcus.

She was sitting at the desk in her off-base apartment, tapping a pen against the report she had intended to proofread. But she wouldn't be able to continue effectively unless she first came to a decision about the man consuming her thoughts. And if there was one thing her legendary mother had taught her, it was to never let a man interfere with her duties.

The official end of the Pendulum Wars was a week ago today, and that was what had done it for Anya. The gruesome 79-year conflict had ended, and Marcus hadn't said a single word to her, professionally or otherwise. The plans for demilitarization meant that he and Anya wouldn't be working together much anymore; wouldn't be seeing each other much at all anymore. He hadn't so much as looked at her when they heard the orders to send half of the Control staff, including Anya, back to Ephyra before the rest of C Company.

That had stung like nothing else. Clearly he didn't care if he ever saw her again.

Everyone else had been rejoicing and making homecoming plans, and Marcus had wandered off to the armory to dismantle and clean his Lancer.

She heard Helena Stroud's strong, practical voice in her head as clearly as if the Major had been standing over her shoulder. _"It's okay if you decide to use each other for sex, Anya."_ Helena had never been one for messy relationships; Anya never knew who her father was, and his absence never seemed to bother Helena one bit. Anya was willing to bet it truly hadn't. _"But if you want something from him that he's not willing to give, cut him loose before you get so attached that you can't let him go. The last thing soldiers need to see is a female officer mooning over an enlisted man who couldn't give a shit about her."_ Those had been Helena's exact words to her daughter when Anya had confessed her attraction to the young corporal, less than a week before her mother had died while single-handedly taking out an enemy tank at Aspho Fields.

Anya sighed. That was it, then. That was what she needed to do: cut him loose. She had to stop sleeping with Marcus before she fell for him. Any more than she already had, that is_. 'I never should have let this go on for two years, Mom. Forgive me.'_

C Company would be arriving tonight. Maria would probably insist Marcus join Dom and the rest of the family for dinner, and then he would go to his father's mansion at East Barricade Academy. Marcus never came to her for at least a week after coming home from deployment; that would appear too sentimental, showing up on her doorstep the second he got home. So she didn't have to worry about him showing up tonight or tomorrow. She still had time to think.

The only problem was in the execution. Besides the random nights when Marcus decided to come to her apartment for sex, they never had any private time to talk. Not that Marcus would have talked anyway. Actual spoken words that acknowledged they had a relationship had never been uttered. The closest thing he had ever said was, "Would you like me to stay for a while?" And she was one hundred percent certain his father didn't know about her. Dom seemed to know, but he had never said anything to her directly. Technically, she and Marcus weren't even dating, so there was no "breaking-up" to do.

Anya had several basic options: she could wait until the next time he came to her apartment building and simply not press the button to let him through the security door; find him on base and tell him in no uncertain terms that whatever they had was over; or do something within earshot of Marcus that would appear to him like very subtle flirting.

The last one had the most promise: Anya wouldn't have to do anything directly, just place a friendly hand on some CIC tech's shoulder and laugh politely at something he said. Marcus would assume she was either losing interest in him or just unfaithful, and he would simply never approach her again unless it was an official military matter. He would feel like he had been the one to make the decision to stop seeing her, and Anya wouldn't be stuck with some spindly radar geek thinking Lieutenant Stroud had the hots for him.

Anya straightened up in her chair. That was it. That was the winning strategy. Marcus would have some time to enjoy being home from deployment, and as soon as he was in close enough proximity on base, she would execute her plan.

She resumed filling out her report and put her worries about Marcus Fenix out of her head for good.


	18. E Day plus 14 years 31 weeks: 1600 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1600 hours]

Dom hadn't liked the idea of moving Maria into the tent to serve as bait, but Anya had assured him there would be no chance of a firefight. Now she, Marcus and Baird were lying in wait for Sharon in a smaller tent next door. Marcus was covering the back entrance flap and Anya was peeking out the front. Baird was ordered to sit in a chair in the corner, keep his big mouth shut, and be ready to help deactivate any robots they discovered.

He was sitting and ready, but still had to be shushed periodically by low growls from Marcus.

Anya fully expected to wait the better part of an hour for the infiltration expert to reconnoiter the area and decide on an approach, but Sharon Keller came boldly strolling down the snowy track just a few minutes after they had taken up their positions. Obviously she had gotten over her fright. Anya waited until Sharon was just about level with her tent, then stepped out and hauled Sharon in by her elbow before the smaller woman could even resist.

Sharon merely looked irritated until she saw Baird stand up in the corner. "You set me up," she hissed at Anya. Her hazel eyes were outraged rather than afraid.

Anya made a soothing motion with her hands. "I'm sorry about that. We needed to find you."

"Where are the robots?" Baird snapped. Sharon flinched backwards. "Don't look at me like that. It's insulting."

"He won't hurt you, Sharon." Anya stepped in front of Baird, effectively blocking him, although he could still see over her head.

"I'll make sure of it," Marcus growled.

Baird threw up his hands. "What is with the character assassination today? I don't hit women!" He paused. "Except Sam. When she hits me first."

Anya thought about it. "That's true. Even Sam says so, and she would know."

"Gee, thanks, Lieutenant."

"The robots," Marcus reminded them.

Sharon's eyes had never left Baird. "Keep him away from me, and I'll tell you everything."

"Deal," Marcus said. Baird made a disgruntled huffing noise. Marcus pinned him with his near-white stare. "Even if I have to introduce him to the business end of my Gnasher." Baird sulked, but didn't challenge Marcus for proof of that.

"All right," Sharon agreed. Baird's eyes flicked up at her, curious in spite of himself. "There are four." Marcus relaxed imperceptibly.

"Where are they?" Anya pressed gently, still blocking Baird.

"Three are following the convoy." She tossed her head in the direction of the main tent. "One is in there, watching over Maria and the children."

Marcus cut to the chase. "How do we get it to stand down?"

"There's no 'standing down' for it to do. It's not armed. Recon only. It signals us if Maria or one of the children starts to wander off."

Baird spoke over Anya's head. "Tell him how to deactivate the cloak."

"Shave and a haircut."

"What?" Marcus hated riddles, but clearly it meant something to Baird. "Baird?"

"It's POW tapping code from the Pendulum Wars. COG prisoners used it to communicate between cells without the Indies catching on. 'Shave and a haircut' is a mnemonic device for this." He tapped out a rapid five-beat sequence on the side of a filing cabinet. "It's the first half of a call-and-response set. The response is just two taps."

"It's sort of a primitive 'identify friend/foe' system," Sharon added.

"Anya," Marcus ordered, "Stay here and watch these two. I'm going to try it out."

"Sure, Marcus."

He went next door into the large tent, Lancer held down at his side. His skin prickled. Not being able to see the enemy was one of the worst stresses on a soldier. He hoped to God that Sharon was telling the truth, and the robot wasn't hostile.

Dom looked up from brushing Maria's wispy hair. "Hey, Marcus! How did it go?" Marcus momentarily forgot what he was there for. Dom glowed with happiness, his white grin standing out in the dim light. Marcus hadn't seen him look that joyful since he'd held the newborn Sylvia in his arms. "What's up?" Maria made a small protesting noise and Dom went back to brushing her hair. She closed her eyes and leaned into the brush, clearly enjoying the feel of the soft bristles on her scarred scalp.

"Wait one." Marcus tapped out the sequence on the tent's central support post. He heard two responding clicks from the left rear corner of the tent. A Thrashball-sized robot flickered into view. It hovered gently in mid-air for a moment, then bobbed over to Marcus. Dom blinked at it in surprise, the brush stilling halfway down Maria's hair.

"JEEB!" Maria sang out, extending her arms to the little robot. It floated to her and allowed Maria to hug it to her chest. Marcus moved his finger away from the Lancer's trigger. Obviously not a threat, at least not around her. The little robot made a whirring sound and kneaded Maria's blanket with its six legs.

"Wait," Dom said. "Is that thing purring?"

"Don't know. Let's ask the experts." He radioed Anya and had her bring in Baird and Sharon.

It was clear whose priorities were where: Baird's eyes went straight to the robot, and Sharon's to Maria.

Baird looked like he was in love. "A J-series Evade and Escape Bot! Where did you _get_ one of these?" The robot left Maria and bobbed over to Sharon. When Baird grabbed for it, it shot up out of Baird's reach and hovered over Sharon's head like a child hiding behind its mother's skirts.

"I didn't _get_ him anywhere. He's the J-series prototype. I helped build him."

"Well, that would explain why he looks like a giant cockroach; you always did like bugs." He deliberately softened his expression. "Can I have a look at him? Please?"

Anya, Marcus and Dom all shared a look. Baird never asked for things politely unless there was no other way.

Sharon simply stared at him for several seconds. Baird dropped his eyes. "The 'J' stands for James. Did you know that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I read that somewhere."

"Why did you try to attack me in the med center?"

Baird jerked his chin up. "I wasn't 'attacking' you! You were falling; I was trying to catch you before you hit your head."

"Let's say I believe that. Why did you toss that table across the room?"

"I was pissed because you were acting like I'd try to hurt you, and it was in my way."

"Fine. Why were you all bloody?"

Baird's jaw was twitching now. "I was working on an engine earlier and my wrench slipped. Between that and going to the med center to get stitched up, Cole and I helped Bernie saw up a deer carcass."

Sharon accepted this more quickly than Marcus had thought she would. "All right. You can look at JEEB, but no touching." At her direction, JEEB floated down to sit on a rickety table, one of the mismatched pieces of furniture that the requisitions office had issued to the nomads. Baird walked around the table in a half-crouch, clearly making a tremendous effort to keep his hands off the robot.

"Ablative coating, fully articulated legs, telescoping receiver antennae, radar-dampening fuzz," he spoke to himself, naming off the features he could see, his fingers working an imaginary screwdriver. "LED opt—" He looked at JEEB more closely. "Oh, no."

Marcus tensed. "What is it?" He eyed the robot like it was packed with C-4.

Baird pressed his palms against his eye sockets. "You put _googly eyes_ on his optical sensors?"

"It makes him look less threatening to the kids."

"It makes him look ridiculous."

"That's the idea, Damon. Nobody likes a robot that looks like a cockroach unless you make it endearing somehow."

"I'm taking them off." He reached for JEEB.

"That's not a good idea."

"And why is that?"

"He likes them."

"Likes them? Don't tell me he's got an artificial intelligence."

"I don't know. He didn't have one when we put him together, but he's exceeded his programming in more than a few ways since he was put into service."

"I'm still going to take them off."

"It's still not a good idea. He may not have weapons, but he can electrify his carapace if he feels threatened."

Baird looked at JEEB. JEEB swiveled his optics at Baird. There was a brief crackling sound like a flickering halogen tube.

"If he starts saying things like 'I am the vanguard of your destruction,' I'm yanking out his CPU."

"He can't talk."

"You know what I mean."

"Enough!" said Marcus. "Baird, is it a threat or not?"

"Not that I can see. Theoretically he could have a tiny amount of explosives in there, but Sharon would never booby-trap a robot, even to keep him out of enemy hands."

"So it's safe, then?" Anya asked.

"He's safe."

"Good," decided Marcus. "Anya, call off the search. Baird, back to your garage. Sharon, you are free to go wherever you like. Dom, I asked Hoffman for a week. He said you can have ten days."

"Okay, Marcus." Anya left, speaking rapidly into her tac/com.

"Thanks, Marcus," said Dom and Sharon.

"What the hell, Marcus?" said Baird. "Why can't I stay here?"

"Because the situation is under control for now. And I know that will change if I leave you here unsupervised."

"Unsupervised? Since when do I need supervision to do my job?" Dom and Marcus traded a knowing glance. "Fine, you jackasses, I'll go." He shot a glowering look at Sharon before he turned to leave.

A watch-like contraption strapped to Sharon's wrist made a series of beeps. "Oh!" she said, "The convoy is here." She pressed a button to stop the beeping and looked at Baird. "I suppose you're still standing there because you remembered there are three more robots with the convoy."

Baird gave Marcus a pleading expression like a kid asking for one more hour before bedtime.

"All right, Baird, we'll stay a few more minutes so you can look at them."

"Actually," Sharon said, "I was thinking you should just take one of them back to your garage with you." She tapped a few more buttons and another robot shimmered into existence just outside the open flap to the tent.

"DENIS!" Baird exclaimed, his face radiating pure joy.

**# # #**

**Sci-Fi Easter Eggs: ****Orphanage**** by Robert Buettner, and "Mass Effect 2".**


	19. E Day plus 14 years 31 weeks: 1615 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1615 hours]

After Baird, DENIS and Marcus had left the tent, Sharon rubbed her hands over her face in relief.

"You okay, Sharon?" Dom asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay. It's just been a really long day already, and it's not even dinnertime."

"Speaking of dinner, you didn't get to finish your food earlier. Why don't you go to the mess hall and get something to eat?"

"Good idea. Mary?" Sharon crouched in front of Maria where she sat between Dom's legs. "Mary, do you want something to eat, darling?"

Maria stopped playing with her hair. "Facon, please."

Dom cocked his head at Sharon. "Facon?"

Sharon smiled a bit. "That's what she calls those little fake bacon bits. She adores them. Does the mess hall have any?"

"'Have any?' We've got pallets of that stuff. The mess sergeant will be begging you to take a box home with you."

"She'll love that."

"Shar'n?" Maria asked.

"Yes, honey?"

"My hair is all straight now. Can someone help me wash it?"

"I think we can do that." Sharon straightened up and signaled to the few nomads who were already occupying the tent. "Bath time for the kiddos." She looked at Dom. "Lavatory blocks?"

"Over in K-sector. I'll take care of Maria."

"Actually, she can almost do it on her own now. Mrs. Wilson has been teaching her along with the little ones. Changing her instructor now will just confuse her."

Mrs. Wilson clapped her hands. "Come on, kiddos, let's go. Someone hold Maria's hand."

Sharon spoke to JEEB. "Find the lavatory block and watch the door while they're in there so no one wanders off." The robot made two affirmative clicks.

"But—" Dom started to protest. The idea of someone he didn't know having to bathe his wife for him was incredibly awkward.

Sharon leaned close to him and whispered. "The other part is that she's never seen a man with his clothes off, Dom. I think that would probably freak her out."

Dom remembered back to the look on Maria's face the very first time she'd seen him _au naturel_. "Yeah, I think you're probably right about that." He reluctantly let two children take Maria's hands and lead her out of the tent.

"It won't be like this forever, Dom."

Dom rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah. Yeah, I hope not. I kind of like taking care of her myself."

Sharon smiled at him affectionately and put her arm through his. "Come on, let's go get some food."

Once they were at the mess hall, Sharon left him to go stand in line. Carmine and Jace waved Dom over to their table.

"Dom!" Carmine sounded as cheerful as always. "We heard the good news! Congratulations, man, I knew you'd find her someday."

Dom's heart swelled in his chest and he felt his eyes sting. "Yeah. Yeah, we finally found her." He swallowed his tears and a huge, watery smile took their place. "This is the best day of my life." No one needed to ask whether he was talking about his life before or after E-Day.

Jace slapped Dom on the shoulder and shook his hand. "Congrats, man. You probably don't realize how much this means to everyone else who's looking for somebody."

"I hope people aren't getting their hopes up too much. These odds are one in a million. Maybe more."

"Yeah, man, but Sera runs on hope these days. And we just got a pretty big boost, thanks to you."

"I guess you're right, Jace." Dom stopped feeling quite so guilty that he'd received his wife back from the dead when so many other men hadn't. "It's really thanks to Sharon Keller, though." He gestured in her direction. "She's the one who has kept Maria alive for the past three years."

"So that's Sharon Keller," Carmine said. "Pretty."

"Hmm," Jace said, squinting. "It's hard to tell, what with the camouflage clothing and all, but I'd guess—"

Carmine supplied, "Thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six."

"Carmine, take off that damn helmet," Dom snapped. He was annoyed. Next they'd be talking cup sizes and wondering what kind of panties she had on. And it was more than a little disturbing to think that Carmine could have been walking around this whole time using his visor's telemetry feature to size up women.

Carmine followed his corporal's order and tucked the helmet under his arm. The first thing he did was scratch his nose. Everyone who wore helmets did. It was a natural result of not being able to touch your face most of the time.

A couple of female Gears did their best to catch his eye. He waggled his fingers at them, and the hardened soldiers giggled to each other. Clayton was very popular with the ladies. He was just an average-looking brunet*, but his build was impressive even for a Gear, and blending that with the Carmine family's sweet, outgoing personality and his stellar service record created a lethal combination. When it came to single women, nobody in the surviving one percent of Sera's population could compete with Clayton Carmine. Nobody.

Clayton whispered to Jace, "I already know _their_ measurements."

Jace laughed and said to Dom, "You know that's why they stopped putting thermal imaging in the helmets, right?"

"Carmine..." Dom pinched the bridge of his nose.

"What? I don't do it to every girl." He shrugged. "Just the hot ones."

Dom sighed. "It's still ooky."

Clayton held his free hand up in defense. "Hey, I've got ground rules, man. For example, I've never checked out Anya."

"Well, then, at least you have standards."

"Thank you."

"That was sarcasm, Carmine." Dom got up to sweet-talk the mess sergeant out of some bacon bits.

He was going to have to have a long talk with Marcus about Carmine and his helmet.

**# # #**

*** Brunet = male with dark hair, brunette = female with dark hair; blond = male with light hair, blonde = female with light hair. This concludes our grammar lesson for the day.**

**Find That Geek Reference! : "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".**


	20. E Day plus 14 years 31 weeks: 1700 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1700 hours]

After getting the condensed version of what he'd missed, Cole watched Baird tinker happily with DENIS for almost half an hour. He had the back panel off of the oddly-shaped robot and was even humming little snatches of songs to himself around the penlight gripped in his teeth. Every now and then he would pull his goggles over his eyes and use the telemetry feature to measure something, then put them back up and jot notes on a greasy piece of paper by his elbow.

"So," Cole began. Baird jumped, nearly dropping the current-clamp he was using to measure the amount of voltage running through DENIS's various wires. Clearly he had forgotten Cole was even there. "What shape is this thing exactly?"

"He's not a thing!" Baird realized what he'd said. "Well, he's not a thing to _me_. DENIS is a dodecahedron; a twelve-sided polygon."

"Why'd you make him that dode—dodec—why'd you make him that shape?" Cole gave up on the multi-syllable word he'd never heard before in his life.

Baird shrugged. "It was my favorite word when I was little. 'Dodecahedron' was just fun to say."

"Baird, you must have been one strange child."

"No argument here."

Cole came closer to the workbench and started looking at the parts of DENIS that Baird had taken out already. He saw Baird watching him out of the corner of his eye, probably to make sure he didn't touch anything. "What's 'DENIS' stand for?"

"D-series Nighttime Infiltration System. I built him to get around my parents' security system so I could sneak out at night."

"Uh-huh. You said that the 'J' in JEEB stands for J-series, which stands for 'James'. So the 'D' must stand for 'Damon', right?"

"You got it, Cole." Baird had gone back to giving the robot his full attention.

Cole held up the detached access panel so Baird could see it. "Right. And what's the 'S' stand for?" he asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from Baird.

Baird looked warily at the inner surface of the panel, where two ornate, interlocking initials were etched into the alloy. "That's actually a 'B'. For 'Baird'."

"Looks an awful lot like an 'S' to me." Cole put the panel on the workbench, the inner surface facing up.

"Fine, it's an 'S' for 'Sharon'. She helped design it, so we put her initial inside too. Big deal."

"Baird, co-workers don't intertwine their initials with little curlicues and hearts."

"There are no hearts!"

"There might as well be."

Baird rolled his head in an irritated manner. "Fine. Fine, you want the whole truth?"

"You'd better believe it. We've been friends for fifteen years, man. I don't like it when my friends keep secrets from me."

"All right, all right." Baird didn't face Cole, instead twirling a screwdriver's tip into the metal of the workbench, making tiny curls of metal shavings. "Sharon was my girl before James took her and DENIS from me."

Cole leaned one hip against the workbench, satisfied. "I knew there was something more to that attempted-murder business."

"I didn't—! I didn't intend to beat him up that badly. I kind of got riled up beforehand, and then when I saw them through the window, sitting down to breakfast together like they'd been doing it for years ... I just lost it. I called James outside and things got out of hand."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

Baird threw down the screwdriver with a clang. "Why the hell would ever I want to tell _anyone_ that my high-school sweetheart dumped me for my best friend?"

"I see your point. What got you riled up?"

"You don't want to know."

"I do want to know."

"Seriously, you don't."

"Just as seriously, I do."

Baird rubbed his mouth brusquely with the back of his hand. "Fine. I'll tell you my uplifting coming-of-age story."

**# # #**

**I'll make you a giant chocolate-chip cookie if you leave a review noting the bit from The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.**


	21. 5 weeks before E Day: 0645 Baird

5 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Halvo Bay, 0645 hours]

"What the hell is this?" Jocelin Baird brandished the wedding program Damon had thrown in the fireplace in his bedroom suite. He hadn't been able to bring himself to burn it yet. Apparently he was going to pay for that little bit of cowardice. His father shoved the wrinkled leaflet into Damon's chest. He caught it reflexively and his eyes involuntarily went to the cutting words scrawled across the Order of Service:

_She's my wife now, and I'm in love with her. Don't try to contact her through DENIS, we've locked you out of his system. Keep the goddamn necklace; we don't care what you do with it._

"He stole your girl, your life's work, your goddamn _dignity_, and you just stood there and took it on the chin? You make me sick!" Jocelin elbowed Damon in the face so hard that he collapsed in a heap. Pulsing black spots and white streaks of light crowded his vision, but not so much that he didn't see Jocelin removing his belt and wrapping the end around his hand.

Damon covered his head, tucked up on the marble floor. Normally his father's whippings were tolerable, but this time Jocelin was using the belt with the enormous COG buckle, the one whose deliberately sharpened gear teeth left painful, open welts. "Get up, you piece of shit!" his old man yelled. "You don't deserve to be a Baird! You don't deserve an inheritance! You don't deserve to _breathe!_"

'_Why the hell am I lying here?'_ All the stabbing pain and anger from the last six months – hell, the last eighteen goddamn _years_ – boiled over in a seething, white-hot rage. Damon actually saw a red haze at the edge of his vision. _'I'll be damned if I'll just lie here like a dog.'_ He waited for the belt to swing down again, then lashed out with his left arm and let the leather's momentum wrap it around his forearm. He yanked the belt out of his father's grasp and leapt to his feet.

Damon snarled, swinging the belt at his side like a lariat, the COG buckle making an oscillating whistle as it cut through the air. "Let's see how_ you_ like it, you son of a bitch."

The belt snapped out like a bullwhip, catching his father in the side, but then glancing off. Jocelin spat, "You don't have the balls to take me on, you little brat."

Damon roared, this time stepping forward as he lashed out, giving the buckle extra momentum. The teeth caught Jocelin in the same spot, this time sinking into the flesh and sticking there. He pulled the belt straight back and bits of shirt and gore came with it.

Jocelin didn't make a sound, or even cover the wound. He circled his son, and Damon mirrored the movement. "Pitiful," the elder Baird sneered. "I can see your close-combat lessons were a waste of good money."

Damon feinted another stroke with the belt, then hooked a foot behind his father's ankle and shoved him in the chest. Jocelin went skidding across the marble hallway on his side.

"Come on, coward! You can do better than that," Jocelin taunted, lounging on the floor like he was sunning himself at the beach. Damon leapt forward and drew his arm back to punch him. "Not like that." Damon stopped. '_He's giving me frakking _advice_ on how to beat him up_?' "You'll break every bone in your hand punching a man in the jaw. Use your elbow."

'_Fine, you old bastard, I will.'_ His father's breath huffed out in a rush when Damon's elbow connected with the side of his face, and droplets of blood flew from his mouth. Damon hit him again in the same spot. More blood.

His father started laughing. His teeth were stained bright red. Damon stood back, confused as all hell.

"Good boy!" His old man leapt to his feet, holding his ribs and spitting out a small spray of blood, but otherwise seemingly unaffected. "You'll make a decent Gear after all."

Damon stared at him, incredulous. "This was some kind of sick test?" He couldn't believe it. This was barbaric, even for an utter bastard like Jocelin Baird.

"And you passed. Flying colors. I knew you just needed a final push." His father's grin widened. "Well done, Damon." He gestured toward the nearest kitchen. "Now go get some ice for that elbow. You need to be in top shape when you get to the Kellers' estate."

"_What?"_

His father lifted his chin and smiled approvingly. "Go beat the living shit out of that frakking upstart. Nobody steals from a Baird and gets away with it."

Damon tossed the belt at Jocelin's feet. His father let it lie there and said, "I'll bail you out of jail when they arrest you. I'll make sure you won't go to prison." He shrugged. "Unless you kill him. That might take a little longer to sort out."

Damon turned to the archway that led to the east wing's kitchen. His mother was leaning against the wall. Clearly she'd been there the whole time. She held an ice pack out to him and smiled proudly. "Give him hell, baby."

He took the ice pack and pressed it to his elbow. This was the first time his mother had ever called him "baby". He gave them both a wicked sneer. "You bet your ass."

His father sneered right back. "That's my boy."


	22. E Day plus 14 years 31 weeks: 1900 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1900 hours]

Cole was practically dragging Baird to the debriefing by his elbow. "Come on, man, you have to go."

"Why?"

"Because you've been ordered to, and if you don't go you'll end up on a charge and get busted back down to Private. Again. Because it'll look suspicious if you're the only one from Delta who's not there. Because Sharon's got critical information to tell us."

"Like what?"

"Well, apparently she snuck into Nexus a couple of times and knows some stuff about the Locust."

"She did _what?"_

"Snuck into Nexus. That's how she found Maria three years ago."

Baird ran the last thirty meters to Hoffman's office and burst through the door. Sharon was just being introduced to Colonel Hoffman, Chairman Prescott and the rest of Delta Squad. "What the hell were you thinking sneaking into Nexus, Sharon? You could have been killed!"

"It's the end of the world, Damon. Everyone here 'could have been killed' a dozen times over already."

"You didn't have to increase the odds! Are you suicidal?"

"Corporal Baird!" Hoffman thundered. "Stand down!"

Baird clamped his jaw shut and slumped against a filing cabinet, still glaring daggers at Sharon. She ignored him.

"As I was saying," Prescott continued as though the outburst hadn't happened, "the COG is very grateful to have you and your people join us, Mrs. Keller."

"It's good to be back, Mr. Chairman."

There was nowhere for twelve people to sit in Hoffman's office, so almost everyone was either standing or leaning against something. Jace, Carmine, Sam, Bernie and Cole settled in for the long haul, content to let the big brains do the thinking. Anya and Hoffman were sitting behind his desk taking notes. Marcus, Baird and Prescott had prodigious memories and didn't need to write anything down. Dom was still on leave with his wife.

"Please," the Chairman said in his ultra-smooth manner. "Do tell us what you know about the Locust, Mrs. Keller." Despite the fact that Sharon was moderately disheveled, clad in ragged camouflage clothing and the only clean spot on her was her face, Prescott was giving her his visiting-dignitary level of politeness. A true statesman from first to last. And, if Baird thought about it, until the citizenship papers cleared she really was a head of state, even if her state was only three hundred and twenty-six people.

"Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I started infiltrating the Hollow regularly about eight years ago to learn more about the Locust. We rationalized—" Baird snorted at the verb, and Sharon only paused for a moment. "We rationalized that knowing more about each species of Locust would aid us in avoiding or killing them when we encountered them on the surface. It was a great help to us in developing escape-and-evade tactics, training the dogs, and developing species-specific weapons and countermeasures." She produced three copies of a typed document and gave one each to Anya, Hoffman and Prescott. Marcus read over Anya's shoulder. Baird refrained from demanding one for himself. "Here is an overview of the species and their respective countermeasures, as well as transcripts of the debriefings from each solo mission, including my own."

Baird couldn't keep quiet anymore. "You went in _alone?"_

She shrugged. "Of course. Each additional person on an infiltration team exponentially increases the odds of discovery." Baird knew that, but he couldn't help shaking his head anyway. _'Idiotic risk-taking. She could have been captured and tortured like Maria.'_

Marcus must have had a similar thought. "And you found Maria on one of those trips?"

"Yes. She was the only remaining survivor in a group of test subjects." Sharon's face softened. "I couldn't just leave her there."

"Very noble of you, Mrs. Keller," the Chairman cut in. Baird rolled his eyes. "Did you find out what the tests were for?"

"I didn't have much time, but I downloaded the data and analyzed it later. It seems as though the Locust were experimenting with various levels of lobotomization, trying to develop a method for creating docile workers out of captured humans."

"The sons of bitches don't just want to take over the planet; they want to enslave what's left of humanity once they've finished," Hoffman said.

"Looks that way. Although if Maria's condition is any indication, they haven't had much luck. She was pretty much comatose when I found her. She couldn't feed herself, bathe herself," Sharon shook her head, "she didn't even remember how to speak. She'd been reduced to the level of a two-year-old child. Less, maybe. The only reason I was able to get her out was that she remembered how to walk, and she didn't make a single sound."

Everyone looked very grim. Baird could see on the men's faces that death would have been preferable to them in the same situation. _'Maria's only alive because a woman found her,'_ Baird realized. '_A man would have put her out of her misery. But a woman would have seen her as a child, and no woman could put a bullet through a child's head, particularly not a woman who's been a mother. Not even _my_ mother could have pulled the trigger on Maria.'_ He wrinkled his brow in surprise. It was the first time he'd thought about his mother in almost a year, and the first halfway positive thing in a decade and a half. He shifted uncomfortably against the filing cabinet.

"Anyway," Sharon continued, "now that the Hollow has been flooded, all of their laboratories should be underwater. I doubt they'll be taking any more prisoners."

"Thank God," Baird said. "Imagine shining boots for a hideous Locust master for the rest of your life."

"You thought the Locust Queen was classy," Cole reminded him.

"Hey, she didn't look like the other Grubs, man."

"The ruling class," Sharon nodded. They stared at her. She stared back, incredulous. "You mean you don't know?" Hoffman, Prescott, Anya and Marcus hadn't read that far into the document.

"No."

"But—but—" she sputtered. "It's obvious."

Baird rolled his eyes again. "Apparently not, Sharon. Why don't you share with the rest of the class?"

"They're human. Sort of."

"I knew it!" Cole shouted, making everyone jump. "No way she could be a Locust. Not with that fine body."

"They're half-Locust, in a way. They use a Locust symbiote that taps into their spinal cord and brain stem. It lets them control the Locust somehow, probably by creating a targeted electrical charge or releasing very specific pheromones."

Baird got very excited. He loved deconstructing theories. "That makes sense! How else could such a frail creature like the Queen dominate mindless things like Brumaks and Berserkers?"

"Not to mention the Riftworm," Marcus said. "The Kantus must have a similar natural ability to get the worm to follow them, and can also use it to re-energize dying Locust somehow." Sometimes Baird forgot how smart Marcus was, but Adam Fenix was his father, after all. Marcus was a genius genetically, if not in practice.

"So _that_ was that thing we saw on her back with the waving tentacles. Man, that thing gave me the heebie-jeebies," Cole said.

"Wait, wait, wait," said Anya. "You're telling me that the Queen is using _mind control_?"

"More like instinct control. The symbiote isn't psychic or anything; she can't put direct thoughts in the Locust's heads. But something about it does compel them to obey her, practically worship her. Similar to an infant's deep attachment to its mother."

"'Oh, Mommy, don't let the bad man hurt us.'" Baird recalled Cole taunting the Locust. He looked at the big man. "You were more right than you knew."

"And there are more of these Locust-human chimeras?" Once again, it was Marcus who picked up on the larger implications first.

"Not many. I've only seen a few dozen individuals myself. They rarely left the Hollow before it flooded, and they are heavily guarded."

"They leave the Hollow?" Carmine looked a little nauseated by the idea of these hybrids walking around among humans, undetected.

"They did. How do you think the Queen spoke perfect Tyran, no accent at all? They detach the symbiote, venture out onto the surface and steal information and technology."

Marcus said darkly, "That's how they knew the Pendulum Wars were over. That's how they knew to wait six weeks until the COG started de-militarizing." The look on his face was scaring even Cole. "That's why they had weapons and knew exactly where to launch their first strike." His fingers were white where they clutched the grip of his service pistol. "All this time we've been cursing the Locust because they were the ones we could see. But it was greedy, genocidal human beings all along." Baird knew Marcus was thinking about the eight decades Sera had spent killing each other over Imulsion.

Everyone was quiet for a bit. The excitement of finally getting some answers faded into a gray depression.

"How long has this been going on?" Marcus asked.

"Many generations, if I had to guess. I'm sure you noticed how pale the Queen's coloring was. And those milky-blue eyes?" Marcus nodded. "That's a natural adaptation to low-light conditions. It's the same reason the Locust have white hides. No need for melanin to protect them from sunlight."

"Is that why Marcus has those freaky gray eyes, too? Because his family originally came from way up north?" Jace asked, fascinated.

Marcus turned his barely-controlled anger in Jace's direction. "Don't you dare compare me to those frakking animals."

Jace held up his hands in surrender. "Hey, whoa, Marcus. I'm just talking about pigmentation, not morals." Marcus deigned to let him live. Baird was surprised Jace even knew the meaning of "pigmentation," much less how to pronounce it. Maybe he shouldn't be so hard on the kid.

"That concludes my basic summary," Sharon said to the Chairman. "Please take some time to read the document I gave you so that you can ask me specific questions. I'll wait here."

The room exploded into conversation, Delta Squad pressing in to look at the three documents and interject their own hypotheses. Baird hung back, lost in thought_. 'Shit. We did this to ourselves? That is really the final insult. More than one person is going to be insanely pissed when the general public gets a whiff of this.'_ He sighed.

"What?" he heard Sharon ask. He started, realizing she was standing not two feet away from him. Those foxlike eyes were looking up at him, unafraid. There were a few more lines around them than before, but other than that, they were unchanged. She didn't look much different at all, he realized, just a bit older, thinner, and a lot more tired.

He cleared his throat. "I was just thinking that people are going to be very upset when they find out that the Locust's leaders are humans."

"Sort of human. They haven't evolved into another species, but they are adapted enough to life underground to make them a new racial group."

"Yeah, I don't think the average person is going to see it that way."

"You're probably right."

Now that she was standing close beside him, they both realized at the same time just how much bigger he was than before.

Sharon blinked at his massive chest and arms. "Did you just forget to stop growing or something?"

"No. After E-Day, they started giving Gears under 25 a series of injections that permanently boosts testosterone production. Otherwise we wouldn't be big enough to go hand-to-hand with the Grubs."

"Oh." She looked at Delta Squad. "That's why everyone is so huge."

"Everyone male who joined before they were fully-grown, yeah. Cole and Hoffman were too old for it to work; they're just naturally that tall and bulky. Marcus and Dom would have been big men anyway, but they got the injections in their early twenties, which gave them just a little more advantage in height and weight."

"What about the female Gears, like Sam? They don't look over-muscled."

"They don't have to take it. Too much testosterone causes amenorrhea, and that's the last thing humanity needs. Not to mention high levels of testosterone cause secondary male characteristics. Most women Gears are infertile anyway, but few are willing to grow a mustache just for a slight advantage on the field that still wouldn't bring them anywhere near a Locust's upper-body strength. Women make better snipers than hand-to-hand fighters anyhow. The T-boosters also stop causing an increase in height and muscle mass after the mid-twenties for some reason, so even the guys don't have to keep taking it forever."

"If they've only been using it for fifteen years or so, how do they know it doesn't have long-term side effects?"

"They don't. But it's either the possibility that there may or may not be some kind of side effect forty years from now, or going out there today and having a Locust drone rip your leg off and beat you to death with it. Which does actually happen."

"I see your point." She wrinkled her brow. "Wait, don't steroids cause shri—"

"_They not steroids!" _He bristled at her assumption. "It's a very specific cocktail that causes a permanent increase in _natural _testosterone." He crossed his arms huffily. "My junk is just fine, thank you very much."

"Good to know." Baird didn't really want to know what she meant by that. "Well, it certainly seems to be working on Carmine._ Look_ at those guns!"

"I'm done talking about this."

"Fine. Let's discuss asset distribution."

"Fine." At last, a different topic.

"I need JACK and DENIS."

"No frakking way."

**# # #**

**Author's Note: As far as I know, none of the above is canon; just the product of my own diseased brain. I simply felt the burning need to come up with reasons for what was done to Maria down in the Hollow, why the Queen looks human, and why male Gears are so flipping HUGE.**

**If you noticed the part from ****Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant**** by Karen Traviss, I'll buy you a beer the next time you're in town. On second thought, you can just have mine; I hate beer.**


	23. E Day plus 14 years 31 weeks:1930 Marcus

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1930 hours]

Marcus was absolutely fascinated by the detail of Sharon's descriptions of the different Locust species and the weapons they used against them, not to mention the non-weaponized countermeasures. Baird was right: this woman was brilliant. Everyone was so absorbed in the document that it was a few minutes before they realized the brainiacs in question were having an argument in the corner that got louder with every word.

"He's my robot!"

"I built him!"

"Not all by yourself, you didn't!"

"Oh, yeah, Sharon, the way you turned the acetylene tank on and off was absolutely critical to success."

"I am perfectly capable of building robots myself, I was just letting you do it because you like tinkering with things. Cases in point—" here Sharon waved her fingers in his face, something everyone on Delta knew he hated with a passion "—JEEB, KEDAR, and SEPDI." She waggled the three fingers. "That's Sharon, 3; Damon, 1. Even you can do that math."

Sam looked at Bernie and whispered, "Did she just call him stupid?"

"I think she did."

"I love this woman."

Sharon and Baird were still going at it. It was like watching a train wreck; even the Chairman couldn't look away.

"You've had him for hours now, Damon, it's time to give him back."

"You've had him for fifteen frigging years!"

"Which makes him even more mine than he was before! Besides, he always liked me better."

"He did not!"

"Did too."

"You're making that up. Robots don't have personal preferences."

"Well, let's just go find out, shall we? We'll both call him and see who he comes to."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

And with that, they both stomped out before Hoffman or Marcus could say otherwise.

Bernie asked the room at large, "Are they really going to put him in the middle and call him like a dog?"

"It would appear so," the Chairman answered. "Now, there's quite an interesting point she makes here about Reavers..." And he continued as though the outburst had simply been another scheduled event on the agenda.

The documents were unbound and various pages distributed between Anya, the Chairman, the Colonel, and the part of Delta that wasn't having a hissy fit. They spread out across Hoffman's office, most sitting cross-legged on the floor with papers spread around them like fallen leaves. Each person had a particular love-to-hate-them species of Locust, and appropriated those sections first. For Anya, it was the Seeders that were always jamming radio transmissions at the worst possible times, and their Nemacyst missiles that had taken down more King Ravens than any other type of Locust weapon. For Marcus, of course, it was the Locust Queen. He was just to the nauseating part about the symbiote detachment process when Sharon came back, looking triumphant, with a twelve-sided teal robot bobbing in her wake.

"Questions?" she asked brightly.

Marcus was amused to see most of Delta raise their hands like schoolchildren. There was something both maternal and professorial about her that inspired respect. _'Clearly that didn't rub off on Baird,'_ Marcus thought. Cole said they had worked together in high school, their crowning achievement being the floating polygon that was indeed following her around like a pet dog. The thought of dogs washed away his momentary humor. He didn't like the idea of thirty-something enormous canines running loose around Port Farrall, but no one in the re-settled coastal town had lodged any complaints so far. And if there was one thing that cold, hungry, displaced civilians liked to do, it was complain.

The Chairman waited diplomatically for over an hour until Sharon had fielded several dozen questions from Delta, then cut in politely. "If I may, Mrs. Keller..."

She turned her attention back to him. "Of course, Mr. Chairman."

He gestured to DENIS, who had been floating patiently in a corner of the room. "I'm very curious about these robots you've constructed."

Sharon smiled like a proud parent. "This one is DENIS, the D-series Nighttime Infiltration System prototype. DENIS can bypass any known security system that doesn't require a supercomputer to decrypt." The Chairman looked very interested. "He can also place things like laser re-direction discs, deactivate mines, and put the precise amount of weight on a pressure pad to convince a security system that an object is still there when in fact it is gone." She gave them all a serious look. "I would like to stress that he has never stolen anything from the COG, although I can't say the same for the Locust or the Stranded."

"If I may interrupt, Mr. Chairman," Anya began. Prescott nodded to her, yielding the floor as if they were in the House of Sovereigns rather than a modular office with bare wooden floors. "Where is our resident robot-builder, anyway?"

"Beating the tar out a sheet of tin, last time I saw him," Sharon replied.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Cole said. "That should keep him occupied for a while." He pointed to DENIS. "Tell us more about your cute little robots."

"JEEB, whom some of you have met," —Marcus and Anya nodded— "is the J-series Evade and Escape 'Bot, which we use to help non-combatants hide from aggressors, be they human or Locust.

"Then there are our offensive linemen," —Cole grinned, and she smiled back— "KEDAR and SEPDI: the K-series Electrical Discharge Attack Robot and the S-series Explosive Payload Delivery Infiltrator."

Marcus stood up, bracing his hands on the desk. "I thought you said the robots weren't armed." His voice was very low and rough. Delta Squad suddenly became very interested in what they were reading.

"They aren't. KEDAR and SEPDI can be weaponized if very specific parts, kept under lock and key, are installed inside them, and several layers of decryption protocols are properly executed, but otherwise all they can do is observe and do menial tasks. And they aren't weaponized right now. I figured it would be rude to sneak in the COG's back door with a bunch of machines armed for war."

Marcus forced himself to relax. "But they can electrify themselves like JEEB?"

"Yes, but the voltage used for that feature is very low. It's not even as powerful as a stun-gun, it's just enough to discourage an unauthorized person from trying to open him up. JEEB and the others can also decrease the charge to a level that's more like static electricity if that person happens to be a nosy child rather than an adult."

"What exactly can KEDAR and SEPDI do?" Hoffman asked.

"When prepared correctly, KEDAR can generate a targeted electrical burst. He can fry sensors and other equipment including the Seeders' ability to jam radio frequencies, electrify fences or other metal objects, even electrocute a specific target or group of targets if directed to do so. SEPDI is our heavy hitter: she can be outfitted with a few dozen high-explosive darts or two small rockets." She held her hands out defensively. "We use the robots' offensive capabilities only as a last resort. We prefer to simply avoid the enemy, and have been pretty successful so far."

"I'll say," Anya commented. "The population data you gave me says the group's size has never shown a significant decrease. The numbers mostly go up."

"We've lost people, to disease, old age or injury, but only five to hostile action, and the birth rate has been holding steady."

"Five?" Hoffman was incredulous. "Only five? Over a period of ten years?" Such numbers were virtually a fairy tale in the COG, where losing people by the thousands was no longer shocking. Out of the 2.5 million inhabitants of Jacinto, more than 850, 000 perished during the sinking. They'd lost thirty percent of the COG's population in that battle alone, either slaughtered by the invading Locust army or drowned in seawater. Marcus calculated quickly in his head. Averaging the nomads' population over the years at about 250, and divided over ten years, that meant their yearly combat losses were 0.2%. _'Two tenths of a percent. Two frigging tenths of one percent._'

"Yes," Sharon said quietly, looking at the floor. "Marta Grunbauer, Avery Preston, John Bremmer, Karen Sedaris, and...and an infant so young her parents hadn't decided on a name yet." She bit her lip. "That last one was my fault. I'd deployed all the robots outside the camp for one reason or another, and a Corpser came up right underneath our position. We had some advance warning because the dogs felt the vibrations about thirty seconds before it emerged, but we had to run, and...the jostling must have broken the baby's neck. She was only two days old, so the muscles surrounding her spine weren't strong enough to protect her from the whiplash."

Everyone was very quiet. _'Maybe 0.2% isn't such a low number when you have so few people to begin with,' _Marcus thought.

"We're very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Keller. I hope that supplementing your already impressive defenses with ten thousand Gears will help in the future."

'_Not frakking likely,'_ Marcus thought grimly. _'It hasn't worked for us so far.'_

But the Chairman's hollow assurances seemed to calm Sharon a bit. "I hope so too, Mr. Chairman. I truly hope so."

The meeting broke up soon after that, none of Delta wanting to get in a conversation with Sharon that would contradict the Chairman's half-lie. Soon it was just Marcus and Anya left, going over the documents with a fine-toothed comb.

Marcus watched Anya out of the corner of his eye. He'd been aching to be alone with her for weeks now, but the Landown assault, Tai's suicide, and the sinking of Jacinto with its accompanying bloodbath meant both of them had been too mentally and emotionally exhausted to be intimate, and the two weeks the COG had spent so far at Port Farrall had been a furious scramble to set up basic living conditions. There had been barely enough time to eat and sleep until today, and certainly not enough for the kind of down time Marcus wanted to spend with Anya. But he was not the quickie-in-the-supply-closet kind, and certainly not with a woman as classy as Anya. He had sworn to himself that no matter how badly he wanted her, he would never, ever take her like that. Even though sometimes he suspected she wanted him to.

He covertly watched her for signs that she would be receptive to him. They had both been more than a little agitated at the idea that human hybrids were the ones directing the Locust's side of the war, but reading Sharon's description had been very calming. Her document stated in an academic tone that all that was necessary to bring down one of the Chimeras was any attack that would kill a human, or simply ripping off the symbiote on their back, which would shred the spinal cord as if it were a bunch of wet noodles. That last one sounded a lot more satisfying. Marcus imagined tearing that hideous monstrosity off the mass-murdering Locust Queen, and felt a lot better.

Anya reached the end of her document and started at the beginning again. So, she wanted to stay longer? Wanted to be around him a bit longer, maybe? That was a good sign. Marcus decided to test the waters.

"So, do you like your new quarters?" he said in what he hoped was a casual manner. Anya paused momentarily in turning a page.

"Yes, they've set up officers' quarters near here. There are certain advantages to being a lieutenant. The rooms are small, but at least they're private."

He knew very well where her quarters were. That was an invitation. Marcus's pulse rate kicked up a little bit.

"I think I'll punch out for today. It's been a long shift."

Anya turned another page. "Yeah, I think I'll probably just put in another half an hour. Get my notes organized, you know."

That meant she wanted him to come by her quarters in thirty minutes.

"Good night, Lieutenant."

"Don't forget your next shift is at 0700, Sergeant."

"Yes, ma'am." He saluted her sharply and left. He went straight to the senior enlisted men's lavatory, which was really the locker room of an old gym, and took a brisk shower with unheated water. Heating fuel was far too costly to spend on getting Gears clean. The Emergency Management chief Royston Sharle had re-assigned the recycled cooking oil to heat their living quarters and keep them from getting frostbite while they were sleeping, so most soldiers didn't complain about the switch. The COG had run out of actual shampoo years ago, but Anya didn't seem to mind if his hair smelled like standard-issue army soap. Wartime COG soap was made with plant oils, thank God; he would never go to Anya after using tallow-based soap like the Stranded made; he'd rather spend the evening alone than with her and smelling like boiled pig fat.

Like most soldiers Marcus only needed three minutes to shower and then he went to his shared quarters and changed into the clean set of fatigues he always kept around for just such an occasion. He was not sharing a room with Delta squad; the Colonel had wisely chosen to assign rooms randomly, knowing that squad members needed time apart. Spending 26/7 with the same stressed-out people, even a gentle personality like Dom, could cause resentment and frustration eventually. Gears had such unusual shift hours that no one noticed if Marcus left and came back only a few hours later. He waited fifteen minutes, which left him just enough time to walk to Anya's quarters undetected.

As usual, Marcus felt suddenly self-conscious when he was about to knock on her door. Even though his family had come from old money and been well-respected, and Anya's mother had been middle-class, she had always seemed above him somehow. Not for the first time, Marcus wondered what she saw in him. But he wasn't about to ask her and risk putting a seed of doubt in her head.

He summoned up the Fenix courage and rapped on the hollow-core door of the modular building.

Anya opened her door to him. She too was freshly washed and cleanly dressed in civilian clothing. She said, "Good evening, Sergeant. I have those reports you wanted to discuss."

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, stepping inside. She closed and locked the door behind them.

Most people who knew them personally had eventually guessed they had some kind of romantic relationship, even Colonel Hoffman, but as long as they gave no obvious signs of their forbidden activities there was nothing the brass would do about it. They couldn't charge them for fraternization if it was just speculation. If asked, even Dom would lie and say there was really nothing between them, that bored soldiers just amused themselves with gossip about male enlisted hooking up with hot female officers. But Marcus and Anya were the worst-kept secret in the whole battalion.

As soon as the door was locked, Anya took her hair down and pulled him in for a kiss. Marcus breathed against her mouth in relief. Three weeks had felt like three months.

She slipped off his bandana and he made short work of taking off her T-shirt. Like most women, her supply of store-bought brassieres had worn out a decade ago, and she resorted to binding her chest with a strip of linen that ran around her torso and over her shoulders in a white X and secured at the back with a clip. The first time he'd seen this contraption, he had thought it was the sexiest piece of underwear he'd ever seen. He still did. Probably just because it was Anya wearing it. She could have worn a potato sack and he would have thought it was sexy.

Unclothed, she never failed to make his breath catch. She had an exceptional figure, all long legs and a perfect hourglass silhouette. Her skin was flawless and silky-smooth everywhere, just as soft and satiny as her hair. Her body was a definite counterpoint to his own, and not just because he was male. Besides being twice her size, he was quite a bit hairier in a lot more places, a lot hairier than he'd been at nineteen when they'd first met, and he wasn't vain enough to shave his chest like Baird and Carmine did. Anya didn't seem to mind, though, the same way she didn't seem to mind his scars and his calloused hands. Those she even seemed to revel in, tracing her fingers over the deep rift on his face over and over again, and guiding his hands to the exact places she wanted him to touch her.

Anya was an almost completely silent lover, preferring to grip his shoulders tightly rather than cry out. She made sure not to scratch him and leave a mark for other soldiers to comment on in the showers. Marcus was quiet too, from a long habit of carrying on a mostly covert affair in places with very thin walls between quarters.

She always looked to him like a goddess, with her golden hair and white skin and her clear green eyes that he could swear turned darker with desire.

Marcus stayed for hours, worshipping this transcendent creature with his body. As always, he hoped his offering was enough for her.

# # #

**Apologies to those of you hoping for descriptions of heaving bosoms and throbbing members: writing smut for my characters feels weird, like I'm peeking in their bedroom windows or something. So henceforth there **_**will**_** be sexy good times, but no anatomy lessons, sorry.**


	24. 6 weeks before E Day: 2100 Marcus

6 WEEKS before E-DAY

[CNV Dalyell, 2100 hours]

C Company and the _Dalyell_'s non-essential personnel had been instructed to assemble on the hangar deck, shoehorned in amongst the Sea Ravens, Terns and Petrels occupying the area. Quentin Michaelson, Commander of D-Flotilla, stepped up to a makeshift podium and was handed a microphone. Everyone crowded more closely together, trying to see around the aircraft lashed to the deck. The brass never assembled everyone all at once; they usually just broadcast the information over the ship's public address system.

"Soldiers of the COG, my fellow Gears: all of Sera has been at war over the rights to Imulsion for nearly eight decades. We have won and lost, we have burned enemy cities and had bombs dropped on our own. We have bled and died to keep our families safe and preserve our way of life. All that ended at ten hundred hours today."

There was absolute silence on the hangar deck as over three thousand people held their breath.

"The Union of Independent Republics has surrendered to the Coalition of Ordered Governments. The war is over." He did not need to add anything more.

The noise in the hangar was deafening. Three thousand voices shouted, screamed, yelled and chanted, rejoicing at the chance for a peace they had never known in their lifetimes. They were going home.

Marcus felt like he had been sucker-punched in the gut.

Dom had immediately been swept up in the whirling vortex of C Company, but everyone knew Marcus didn't like to be touched, so he was left standing alone in the chaos.

His eyes automatically went to Anya. She was at the front with the other officers, smiling and hugging and shaking hand after hand like everyone else. _'C Company will be sent back to Ephyra. The Control staff could be re-assigned. I might never serve with her again.'_ The thought made Marcus want to go outside and puke over the rail. Instead he pushed his way through the crowd to the passageway and went down to the armory.

His favorite Lancer was there. He'd cleaned it after the last battle, but the bayonet could always use another sharpening and a polish. Marcus stood at the table with his back to the door, listening to the sounds of ecstatic sailors running through the hallways shouting and hollering. They were probably making a huge mess of strung-out toilet paper and squirting liquid soap everywhere, but he doubted the officers would put a stop to it. It was a time for celebration.

Marcus focused himself entirely on the Lancer. He laid out each of the twenty-odd pieces and meticulously cleaned them one by one. A thorough cleaning job could take half an hour, but he must have done it five or six times start to finish before he went back to his bunk. Once he thought he heard the _click-click-click _of a female officer's high heels halt outside the open door and then move on a moment later, but he didn't turn around.

It was probably just his imagination.

**# # #**

**A big sloppy kiss from Marcus for everyone who recognized the quote from Prescott's speech in "Gears of War 2".**


	25. E Day plus 14 years 31 weeks: 2400 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 2400 hours]

Dom couldn't keep his hands off Maria. Not in a sexual way, he just had a really hard time letting her go at all. He'd brought back a massive mixing bowl of mashed potatoes with butter and a small mountain of those ridiculous fake bacon bits—which were really artificially flavored and dyed pieces of compressed soy—and Maria and the other nomads had devoured it like manna from Heaven. He'd sat with his legs stretched out and Maria between them while she ate, his arms around her waist and his cheek resting on the back of her neck. Either she didn't notice or she didn't mind. The ten hours that had passed since they'd been reunited had gone by in a blur; he had no idea what they'd done all that time because all he could remember was being around her.

There were about a hundred and fifty of Sharon's three hundred and twenty-six people set up in that large tent, and it didn't seem to matter to them that they were packed in like sardines in a can. Dom supposed maybe that was how they slept when they were traveling; all squished together for warmth. There were about fifteen dogs in there, too, and when people started getting ready for bed, the dogs were welcomed under the blankets just like the children. _'Well,'_ he thought, _'it's not like anybody smells like roses these days, so I guess you can't get any stinkier from having a dirty dog snuggled up next to you all night.'_

That thought reminded him of the rosewater Maria had liked to use as body-spray back before E-Day. As they were arranging a bed of blankets on a camping pad, he snuck peeks at her ruined face, her skeletal body and the patchy shoulder-length hair where once there had been an impressive fall of glossy black tresses. She was no longer the ravishing dark beauty she had once been, the one who had earned him envious looks from most men wherever they went. But his blood still sang when he looked at her, and his chest felt about two sizes too small for all the activity going on inside it. She was Maria Flores Santiago. Maria was here and alive. She was safe, tucked in amongst the 50,000* of the Jacinto survivors who had been evacuated to Port Farrall, 2,500 of whom were tough-as-nails Gears. And in spite of her adult body, her childlike mental condition strongly reminded him of the sweet-natured little girl she had been when the Flores family had moved in next door to the Santiagos.

He could feel himself falling for her all over again.

"Are we going to sleep now, Donny?" As long as Dom could keep Maria's attention focused on the real world instead of wherever she went in her mind, she used full sentences and proper pronunciation.

"Yes, honey, it's time for bed."

"Are you going to sleep here? With me?" She looked very vulnerable, as if he would say no.

"Yeah, baby, I'm going to sleep here tonight. I'll sleep here every night if you want."

She smiled, and his heart twisted a little bit. Her teeth, nose, and the upper left quarter of her face were still the same, no matter what else had been done to her face. "Good, because I want you to stay. I want you to stay for always."

His eyes stung. "Okay, Maria. I can do that. I'll stay for always."

Maria looked delighted. Dom wasn't sure she knew what a husband was, much less that he was hers, but clearly she was happy with the idea of having her very own space-heater this winter.

He'd be her space-heater. He'd be 'Donny'. Hell, he'd be a tap-dancing bear if that's what she wanted.

Maria cuddled against him with her back to his stomach, just as she always had at home, another affirmation that she hadn't forgotten everything about him. Her backbone and ribcage were clearly visible even through her clothes, which had been suppressing his appetite all afternoon and evening; how could he eat when his wife was skin and bones? He was sure that the blazing Gear metabolism would kick in sometime tomorrow, but for today it had been enough just to watch Maria scarf down the bowl of mashed potatoes and "facon".

He fell asleep with a lock of Maria's hair threaded through his fingers, and neither of them had bad dreams.

**# # #**

*** Trying to find the exact figures for what's left of humanity at this point in the story has been an actual headache. There are so many conflicting figures in the books. But by the time the COG arrives on Vectes, they're down to about fifty thousand. So let's go with that. And one Gear for every twenty people.**


	26. E Day plus 14 years 31 weeks: 2515 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 31 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 2515 hours*]

Sharon was trying to sleep, but all she could see when she closed her eyes was Damon beating James to a pulp, over and over again. The actual beating (she couldn't call it a fight because James had never struck back) had only lasted a minute or two, but it replayed itself in her head for over two hours. Gentle James, her loyal husband, the father of her child, being reduced to a bloody rag-doll by a wild-eyed, snarling Damon.

The worst part was when he had kicked him in the head. Every time Sharon saw that behind her eyelids, she flinched. _'He could have given him brain damage. He could have _killed_ him.' _Then her child would have been fatherless.** Grace had absolutely worshiped her daddy. He had been her anchor through all the terrors that made up the only world she had ever known. Without him, Sharon was certain her brave little girl would have been a totally different person.

'_And here I am, thinking about the things Damon and I could build together, the upgrades I could design for JACK. I even let him have DENIS for a while. James lost half his hearing and an internal organ, for crying out loud, and I'm considering how I could use Damon's talents to enhance my technology. What the hell is wrong with me?'_

She realized it was also learning about the T-boosters that was upsetting her. She was enraged by the idea of doctors injecting adolescent boys with massive amounts of body-altering drugs. It seemed like a violation of their human rights somehow, even if it had helped them survive all this time.

'_He survived,'_ she thought. _'One percent of the population left, and Damon survived. And he's right here in this town. What are the odds?'_ She wasn't sure if she hated this bigger, angrier, more bitter Damon Baird, but she definitely didn't wish him dead. _'I guess that's a start.'_ She didn't want to hate the person who had once been the center of her small world, but maybe his Baird nature had gone unchecked by decent friends for too long. Maybe her best friend was gone forever. He certainly wasn't present the night Damon assaulted James.

'_You don't know me anymore, Sharon!' _she remembered him saying.

And he'd been right. She didn't know the person who had shown up at her house that morning. Whoever that had been was like an attack dog that had been sicced on James. She would have to keep an eye out for that stranger.

Whoever that had been might still be in there somewhere.

[Port Farrall, 2545 hours]

Baird had been trying to fall asleep for hours now, but his brain was swirling with schematics and equations and obsessing about how DENIS had been upgraded in the last fifteen years. He was deliberately trying to steer his thoughts away from the turmoil surrounding all Sharon-related issues, which was probably what was making the energizing thoughts of technology consume his brain. It was problematic precisely because his memories of Sharon were what he typically used to soothe his racing mind to sleep. They weren't memories of the sex they'd had together; he never fantasized about her when other people were present because it felt too much like he was sharing her with them somehow. And right now two of the other three bunks in the cramped room were occupied.

DENIS's previous compensated pulsed alternator had been upgraded to a perpetual motion generator—_'Just go to sleep, for COG's sake'_—that generated quite a bit more voltage—_'Shut UP'_—and of course he'd been outfitted with the perfected cloaking tech—'_Seriously, be quiet'_—and anti-grav technology, where before he had had a set of—_'Grrrrr'_—magnetic legs for climbing metal walls and another set for scaling other surfaces. He was altogether more advanced than JACK—_'I have to be back on duty in five hours'_—when it came to hacking electronic systems, and if Baird hadn't trusted Sharon not to try breaking in to the military's computers—'_Dammit, I'm thinking about her again'_—he would have had to come up with another couple layers of encryption to keep her out.

"Shit," he said out loud, turning over in his bunk again. "Shit, shit, shit." Any significant movement at all made the cheap cot squeak like a bunch of rats having a conversation under the bed.

"Baird! Shut the frak up for frak's sake!" One of the bunkmates he was keeping awake threw a pillow at him.

Baird caught the pillow and tucked it under his own. "Screw you, Holt." But he did settle onto his back and try to lie still. He was tired of finding his notebooks glued shut by pissed-off roomies.

'_You know what? Forget trying to keep her out of my thoughts. It's not like I'm trying to picture us doing it doggy-style. I just need to frigging _sleep_.'_

He closed his eyes and conjured up the ghost of eighteen-year-old Sharon. She slipped into bed with him and pressed her phantom warmth to his side. He pictured putting his arm around her, and she laid a touchless hand on his chest, which he stroked with imaginary fingers.

Baird fell asleep.

**# # #**

*** Sera has a 26-hour day.  
**

**** I just want to make clear to my readers that Baird is not going to turn out to be Grace's father. **

**I love writing drama, but I'm trying to steer clear of melodrama. No offense intended if you like soap-operas!**


	27. E Day plus 14 years 33 weeks: 0430 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 33 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 0430 hours]

He and Sharon are all that's left of Sigma Squad. And Sharon is fading.

What he should be doing is peeking over the sandbags to see how many Grubs are still coming out of the E-hole at the other end of the street, but Baird can't take his eyes away from the gaping wound in her abdomen.

The blast from the Boomshot ripped away her armor and most of the skin and muscle covering her abdominal cavity. She is laid open like one of those plastic anatomy torsos they use to teach medical students. He's trying to picture one of those right now so he can put her organs back in the right order.

Gall bladder tucked underneath the liver, pancreas and spleen behind the stomach, kidneys in the back, large intestine running up and around the small intestines—there's still enough muscle and tissue to hold those in place, thank God, he'd never get all of_ that_ back in.

She's so small compared to him that he can keep everything pressed down inside with one hand while he fumbles for the surgical plastic. Gears' medical kits have a lot more field dressings for major wounds than they used to. The fewer soldiers there are, the more precious their lives become. He lays the sterile plastic over her abdomen and slips out the restraining hand so he can use both to smooth the clear sheet over her torso. As he is tucking the plastic underneath the edges of the wound, she opens her eyes a little.

'_I must not have used enough morphine.'_ He reaches for the syringe again.

She coughs up a lot of bright pink froth, which means one or both lungs has been injured, but the lungs are up above her intact diaphragm so he can't get to them.

He's tapping his fingers above the inside of her elbow to make a vein stand out when she grabs his wrist. "I can hear them coming," she says. "You need to run."

"I'm not going anywhere." He shakes off her hand and sticks the needle in her vein, gently pushing down the plunger. "Go back to sleep."

She makes a humming sound for a moment. "I am going to sleep. I'm going to sleep forever."

"No! I can fix this, Sharon. I can fix anything."

The froth has lost its bubbles and turned into a red slick all the way from her mouth to her COG tags and is pooling in the depression between her collarbones. "Nothing can be fixed," she says. "Everything is broken." Her skin is a sickly bluish-white and seems to have shrunk right down to the bone. "Don't forget me. Don't forget that I loved you." Her bright gold eyes dim to a light brown, and her head falls to one side.

"No. No-no-no-no." He shakes her body by the shoulders, but she isn't in there anymore. "Sharon, come back! Sharon, don't leave me here alone!" Something snaps inside him, something important. _"GOD DAMN YOU, SHARON, COME BACK HERE RIGHT FRAKKING NOW!"_

Baird woke up with his last breath still trapped in his lungs. His mouth and nose refused to let it out for a few moments and it felt like he was having an asthma attack. Then something in his chest released, and he could breathe again. He struggled up onto his elbows and tried to make his breathing regular.

He saw a small movement out of the corner of his eye. All three of his bunkmates happened to be there at the same time, and they were all sitting on their beds staring at him.

"What are you assholes looking at?" he snapped.

"Nothing," Holt said. "We were just getting ready to leave." They finished putting their boots on and slipped out the door. Before closing it, Holt made eye contact with him and said, "See you around, Baird."

Baird was stumped for a moment. Why were Holt and the others being nice to him? Then he realized: _'Oh no. I must have been making noises in my sleep or something. They're being nice because they just saw me have a nightmare. Shit, now they think I'm a total pussy.'_

He wasn't on duty for another two and a half hours, but he threw on his clothes and stomped over to the mess hall. It was always open, but pre-dawn was the best time to go if you wanted to eat alone. Baird shoveled in some food he couldn't taste and stewed in his own juices.

'_Dammit, if I'm going to dream about Sharon, why can't they be sex dreams? I had plenty of those when we were teenagers. I have never had nightmares, not through this whole gruesome war. But my ex shows up and all of a sudden I need a teddy bear and a cup of warm milk? She's screwing up my life again without even trying.'_

Baird had been studiously avoiding Sharon for the two weeks since she'd arrived. That was a feat in and of itself because Hoffman had given her permission to borrow tools from Baird's garage. Somehow he always seemed to know when it was her footsteps crunching through the snow outside, and he was able to slip out the side door and go have a mug of that awful coffee substitute until he estimated she'd be gone again.

Avoidance didn't seem to be working for him, though. He still felt like she was peeking over his shoulder all the time, about to give him some advice about whatever he was working on. The back of his neck tingled constantly from the feeling that she was everywhere at once, watching him with terrified, angry or suspicious eyes. Not to mention the horrifying dreams he had every night.

'_How long is this going to go on?'_ He stabbed a piece of something on his plate with his fork_. 'I can't keep on like this. It's intolerable.'_

"Baird."

He knew without looking up that it was Marcus. No one else had such a deep, gravelly voice.

"What?" He pushed the mystery food around on his plate.

"If you're done playing with your food, come help me patrol. It'll give Dom a little more time with Maria."

Baird grumbled wordlessly but got up and bussed his tray anyway. He couldn't continue his project anyhow until the gas canisters arrived at 0700, so he might as well do something. And if there was any way to get on his sergeant's good side, it was doing something for Dom. Not that Baird gave a shit about what Marcus thought, but he might need to call in a favor one day and this was a good one to have in the bank.

The good thing about patrolling with Marcus was that he never wanted to talk. He could have cared less that Baird looked like he'd been chewing on a razor blade; he never asked anyone but Dom how they felt.

Marcus was fully armored, sans helmet of course, but Baird was in his civvies with a down jacket and a hat and gloves. Even so, he still looked like a Gear. Soldiers got two and a half times the caloric intake of a civilian; there was no point in having soldiers if they were too weak to fight. And thanks to the testosterone boosters, male Gears were at least half a head taller than most men, so he and Marcus would have stood out even if there had been more people around.

Marcus led Baird back and forth Delta's section of the perimeter until the sun started to come up. Baird hoped what meager snow there was would melt away. He hated the cold. Marcus seemed impervious to it, like he was to most things, wearing only thin gloves and just the bandana on his head. His ears and cheeks weren't even red. _'Marcus Frigging Fenix. You'd almost think he was a different species. Homo sapiens heroicus, more commonly known as the jackass.'_

A huge black and tan dog ran up to Marcus and started doing circles in front of him. "Hup," Marcus said, flicking his fingers at the beast. "Go away, Rookie." The dog stopped and whined at him, then picked up where he left off. "Huh," said Marcus. "Usually that works."

"Is that one of the nomads' dogs?" Baird asked.

"You know anybody else who has purebred bloodhounds in this day and age?"

"You don't have to be a smartass, Marcus, it's just a simple question."

"Yeah, it's one of Sharon's dogs. Rookie. He follows me around sometimes. I think he wants food or something." Marcus showed his empty hands to Rookie. "No food. All gone. Hup." He flicked his fingers at the dog again.

Rookie stopped circling, but this time he looked mournfully at Baird. "He doesn't look hungry to me, Marcus." Rookie did a few more circles and then stopped again, looking back and forth between the two Gears and whining. "I think—" Baird almost didn't say it, but then he decided he didn't care if Marcus thought he was foolish. "I think he's trying to tell you something. Didn't you say the dogs were trained to sniff out certain things?"

Marcus frowned. "Let's hope Dom has his tac/com on." He pressed his gloved fingers to his ear. "Dom? Dom, you there? Yeah, is Sharon nearby? Okay. Ask her what it means when one of the dogs spins in a circle and whines." He waited a few seconds for Dom to pass along the question and get a reply. "I don't know. Hold on." He looked at Rookie. "What is it, Rookie?" Rookie did a few more circles. Marcus said, "Counterclockwise," into his tac/com. Baird heard a rapid but unintelligible reply.

"Shit!" Marcus said. He switched to a different channel.

"What is it?" Baird asked.

Marcus pulled the Lancer from his back with one hand, the other pressed to his ear. "Control, this is Fenix. One of the bloodhounds is indicating Locust presence nearby. Sound red alert." He turned to Baird as the klaxons started to wail. "Go get your armor and meet me at the Delta-One checkpoint. Go!"


	28. EDay plus 14 years 33 weeks: 0640 Marcus

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 33 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 0640 hours]

Marcus raced to the Delta-One checkpoint. "Nothing here," Jace called down to him from the top of the barricade. "Dom just told me they're supposed to arrive at Theta-Two."

"Stay there," Marcus told him. "There could be another group."

"Wilco, Sarge."

'_Shit. Theta-Two is nine checkpoints from here.'_ Marcus slapped the Lancer onto his back and jogged as fast as he dared. He couldn't arrive at the checkpoint all shaky and out of breath or he'd be of no use. But when he arrived at Theta-Two, no one was firing and he didn't hear any Grubs. There were about fifteen bloodhounds milling around._ 'So that's how they know it's this checkpoint.' _The dogs must have given them one hell of an advance warning.

No one else from Delta had arrived yet; they were probably still getting their weapons and armor. When he climbed the ladder to the top, Sharon was there, standing on an empty grenade crate so she could see over the makeshift wall.

"What the hell are you doing up here?"

She didn't look at him, scanning the forest with her binoculars. "Kicking their asses."

"The hell you are. Get back into the Port."

"All due respect, Sergeant, I'm not military, so take your order and shove it."

"Dammit, I—"

"Contact!" Sharon called out. Marcus followed her pointing finger. Trees started to fall about two miles away. "Corpser." Sharon said it like a cuss word. "That son of a bitch is mine."

Marcus was going to throw her off the barricade if he had to, but suddenly a line of Drones appeared out of the trees two hundred yards away. He yanked the Lancer off his back and started firing. The Tau and Rho squads were crouched behind low sandbag walls outside the barricade, and they opened up as well. Before Marcus knew it, the Zeta, Sigma and Omicron squads showed up with all of Delta except Jace.

The spray of gunfire from fifty Gears took down the dozen Grubs in less than a minute. More Drones were coming out of the trees now, but the Gears were mowing them down like grass. Some of the Grubs weren't even getting off a shot. It had been a long time since the COG had had a superior position over a Locust attack when defending a human settlement, and they used it to their best advantage.

It looked like they were going to win until Marcus saw a puff of smoke and debris a lot farther along the barricade to his right. "Shit." He ducked down and pressed his tac/com. "Control, it looks like either Nu-One or Two is under fire."

"Roger that, Delta," came Anya's unflappable voice. "We've got squads and dogs already there. Not nearly as many Locust as there are at your location. Just defend your position."

"Wilco, Control." Marcus stood up again, changing to a Longshot someone had handed to him. Grinders and Boomers were starting to lumber toward the sandbags. "God damn it," he cursed at them as they moved. "Stand still so I can put a new hole in your head."

He was reloading for the fifth time when some nomad came along and handed a large object up to Sharon, who had just been keeping her head down until now.

She stepped up on the crate and settled the great big contraption on her right shoulder. It reminded Marcus of a flattened, shortened rocket launcher. She rested the end of the barrel on top of the wall. The wave of falling trees parted to reveal the Corpser. _'Shit,'_ Marcus thought. _'Where are those goddamned Centaurs when you need one?'_ Port Farrall had rebuffed three Locust raids already, but the enemy's numbers had gotten smaller each time. _'Friggin' lazy drivers, they've gotten complacent now that the war's over. I bet the Centaurs aren't even loaded.'_

"Come to me, you bastard," Sharon hissed. "Come and die." The Corpser was wearing full armor, so the Gears' gunfire just ricocheted off of it. This one seemed to be smarter than average, because it closed up to present its armored legs like a wall when anyone tried to use something more powerful than a Lancer. It crept closer and closer using that strategy. Dozens of Grubs poured out of the trees, advancing quickly on Tau and Rho so that all of the Gears had to redirect their fire to keep the two squads from being overwhelmed.

The beam of an Imulsion-powered laser like the one used for targeting the Hammer of Dawn was red. Sharon's was bright green, and it projected a grid onto the Corpser's face. The creature closed its legs against a burst of gunfire from the Gears, and Sharon waited patiently. When the Corpser opened up again and lifted a leg to advance, the grid contracted and became a burning green-white spot on one of the Corpser's bigger eyes. The laser followed the movement of the thing's head so that it was always on the eye, and it melted a hole in the protective helmet in under a second. Instead of bursting, the eye began to smoke and sizzle. When the Corpser huddled up, the laser simply burned right through the leg in seconds and locked onto the eye again. The eye burst with an audible _pop _but the laser continued to burrow its way deeper into the eye socket, on its way to the brain. The pain made the Corpser open its legs and mouth to roar. Sharon pushed a button on the laser. SEPDI uncloaked right in front of the Corpser's mouth and fired both of its harpoon-like rockets. Then it re-cloaked and presumably got the hell out of there.

The Corpser roared for about three seconds, during which Marcus could see the rockets buried in the flesh of its mouth were blinking rapidly. The Corpser did not explode when the rockets detonated; it vaporized. Every part of it within a fifteen foot radius of its mouth simply turned into a fine red mist without any light or noise whatsoever. The tips of its legs left outside that radius fell over.

Sharon screamed in victory. "That's for my little girl, you frakkers!"

More Grinders and a Drone with a plundered COG Mortar lumbered out of the trees. Marcus reloaded as fast as he could, but he didn't get off a killing shot until the Drone had already launched one mortar. The projectile arced up and over the barricade and exploded about a hundred yards behind them, raining bomblets down on the support staff waiting in the wings. Marcus tried to ignore the explosions and screaming, and concentrated on taking down Locust after Locust with perfect headshots.

Just when Marcus thought it was over, the Grubs pulled out one more nasty surprise. Two Drones led a chained Berserker out of the trees. "Ah, shit." Marcus said. Even if he had the targeting laser, the Hammer of Dawn was toast. The hail of gunfire from the Gears cut down her Drone escorts in seconds, but the Berserker was loose now, and female Grubs were virtually impervious to every kind of gunfire. _'This is going to hurt us more than the Mortar,'_ he thought. _'We can chip away at her until we get a Centaur over here, but not before she smashes through the barricade and gets loose among the civvies.'_

"Hold fire!" Sharon yelled. To Marcus's astonishment, the soldiers obeyed. Her popularity with the soldiers looked like it was becoming a problem. He was just about to yell _'Belay that!'_ when Sharon shouted out another order. "Release!"

The dozen or so bloodhounds who had been milling around the checkpoint raced out toward the female Grub_. 'The nomads must have persuaded someone to open the door,'_ he realized. _'What the hell does she think she's doing?'_ Then he remembered Sharon's summary of Berserker countermeasures.

The dogs formed a fifty-foot wide semi-circle behind the Berserker. "Bay!" Sharon yelled. The dogs burst into howls that were so loud and deep they made Marcus's eardrums hurt. The deep-chested calls echoed off of every metal surface of the barricade and were amplified back to the Berserker with two hundred percent interest. Everyone on or near the barricade covered their ears. The wooden slats under Marcus's feet vibrated like they might come apart. The ear-splitting din overwhelmed the Berserker's sensitive hearing, and she lurched in circles several times, trying to choose a target, making that awful scream that sounded like an immense eagle.

She charged the dogs on her left flank. Berserkers were fast but blind, and the dogs were much more nimble. The ones she charged streaked past her and formed up at what was now her six o'clock. The utter pandemonium of their baying didn't lessen for a second. The female Grub charged again and again, but the dogs always stayed out of her grasp. They drew her farther and farther away from the barricade, back toward the trees.

Sharon put the laser back on her shoulder, projecting the green grid onto the Berserker's head. A nomad who had climbed up next to Sharon blasted an airhorn that could be heard even over the baying. The dogs fell silent. "Rally!" Sharon yelled.

The dogs streaked straight back toward the barricade. The Berserker might have been deafened, but she could still smell them. She screamed, charging directly at Marcus's position. The green grid from the laser focused in on her eye.

Sharon pushed the button again. Someone must have reloaded SEPDI, because it uncloaked and shot an explosive bolt straight through the female Grub's right eye and into her brain. This explosion was the regular loud, chunky kind. The contents of the Berserker's skull rained down on Tau and Rho.

There was about three seconds of shocked silence before the squads burst into cheers. There was a lot of _'Take that, you bitch!' _and '_That's why you don't frak with the COG!' _being yelled. Marcus used his powerful voice to shout over the bedlam. "Shut the frak up and go help with the wounded!"

That silenced the Gears immediately. There was a lot of chagrined saluting to Marcus and the squads hurried off toward the bomblets' ground zero or the Nu checkpoints. Most of the screaming had stopped, but medical personnel were crawling all over the place.

Marcus put a hand to his ear. "Control, this is Fenix." He looked at Sharon. She gave him the "okay" sign. "The bloodhounds aren't indicating any more Locust presence at Theta-Two. How's the situation at Nu-One and Two?"

"All clear. The dogs at Nu aren't scenting anything now."

"Copy that, Control. Fenix out."

Marcus looked at Sharon and grudgingly admitted, "Maybe the dogs aren't so bad."

Sharon smiled. "Damn skippy."


	29. E Day plus 14 years 33 weeks: 0730 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 33 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 0730 hours]

Cole could see that Baird was pissed by the way he left the battlefield right away, not even asking Marcus if he could go. That meant he was so mad he didn't care if he got put on a charge for ducking out. Cole went and asked for the both of them.

"Yeah," Marcus said, looking around at the lessening chaos. "I guess we've got all the help we need for now. Delta deserves a break anyhow."

"Thanks, Marcus. Radio me if Hoffman calls for a debriefing."

"Will do, Cole."

Baird was, of course, in his garage.

Cole opened with, "Hey, man. Crazy fight, huh?"

Baird was banging viciously on a rusted U-joint he had clamped in a vise. "Yeah. We won. Faaan-tastic."

"What's the matter?"

"I should have thought of those countermeasures myself, that's what! Berserkers started showing up on the surface four years ago. I've known about their hearing for frigging _years_, and I didn't think to make something that would blow out their eardrums? She probably has a gadget that blocks their ability to sniff us out, too." Baird continued beating on the U-joint. "And that laser! How did she get it to burn that hot?" He turned and threw the mallet across the garage. It knocked over a bunch of empty gas canisters and caused a tremendous noise for a few seconds. "And how the_ hell_ did she atomize the Corpser? The COG is nowhere near that kind of technology, and she built it out in the frigging _wilderness_?" He kicked the side of a metal tool chest and it rang like a giant bell.

'_So that's why he's mad,'_ Cole thought_. 'He just got royally shown up by his ex-girlfriend. In front of absolutely everyone.'_

"Well, it probably took her all of those ten years of wandering to figure it out. Not much to do but think when you're hiding in a cave most of the time."

Baird turned back to the workbench and braced his hands on the surface. He breathed in and out through his nose.

It was working. "And it's not like you've had a lot of spare time to tinker with lasers and shit. You've been a frontline Gear all this time, man, you've barely had enough down time between battles to eat and sleep for the last decade and a half."

Baird shook his head, but at least he wasn't throwing things anymore.

"It'll be different now that the war's over. We'll crush the last of these Grubs and then you can raid secret underground laboratories to your heart's content."

Baird drummed his fingers on the surface of the bench. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right."

He just knew Baird's mind would grab on to those cold hard facts despite his emotions. Cole might as well plant another seed of truth in there while he was at it.

"Hell, if you could manage to work with Sharon, the world's technology could get back on its feet a lot faster. We'd have factories and computer networks and shit like that in no time."

Baird didn't turn around, but his tone went low and icy. "I'll be damned if I'll work with Sharon Keller. Screw technology. It can wait."

Cole was truly shocked. Normally Baird could put aside any grudge, no matter how deep, if it meant he could play with high-tech toys. Sharon Keller was the first person Cole had ever seen Baird have such a strong emotional reaction to. _'Huh. Maybe that means he still cares about her.'_ Cole had been convinced for years that what Baird really needed was a good woman, but most women didn't want an acid-tongued hermit who only cared about machines.

"So she's your ex. So she made some impulsive decisions when she was young. Who cares? It's ancient history now. Her husband isn't even around anymore. I mean, you two have a lot in common. You said you were good together in the past. You guys could patch things up and start over."

"I don't want to patch things up! I don't want her in my shop, much less my life! I want her to get the hell out of the COG and never come back!" Baird tightened the vise on the frozen U-joint until Cole though the joint might just crack in half.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why all the hostility?"

"Because she's frakking whore, that's why!"

"Hey now." Cole didn't like hearing ladies talked about like that. "That's not cool, man."

"Why not? It's true."

Cole couldn't button down his curiosity anymore. "Baird, it wasn't just a regular old break-up, was it?" Baird's back stiffened. He said nothing.

"Come on, man, you can tell me. I won't repeat it to anybody. I won't drop hints or give her weird looks or anything."

Baird gripped the edge of the countertop with both hands. "She dumped me for James because he was rich."

"I thought your family was rich too?"

"Yeah, but his was more rich. Like 'you-wouldn't-believe-me-if-I-told-you' kind of rich. My family was just regular old rich. And in order to get my inheritance I'd have to serve two years in the military first. James would get his as soon as he married."

"Yeah, but—"

Baird turned around with his mouth set in a thin, bitter line. "Think about it like this, Cole: say you win the lottery. Would you rather wait two years to get six million dollars, or get forty million right now?"

"Holy shit. That's a lot of cash."

"Exactly." He turned back to his workbench. "And that's why she's a whore. She literally slept with James so she could get his money. The wedding just put a pretty face on it. End of story."

"Damn. I didn't think she was the type."

"Yeah, well, neither did I. Serves me right for trusting her that much."

"Hmm." Suddenly a lot of things about Baird made sense to Cole. "Listen, man, I'll never stomp all over your trust, okay? I even promise not to whore myself out."

Baird let out a tiny laugh. "I'll hold you to that, Cole." He shuffled some things around on the bench. "You know, the first year or so of the war, I was totally pissed at the Grubs. Not for the same reasons as everybody else, though. It was because if they had started attacking us just four months earlier, James's money wouldn't have mattered, and Sharon would have still been with me." He gave Cole a tired, insincere smile. "Took me a while to realize that I wouldn't have known what kind of person she really was until she eventually cheated on me." He spun a wrench that was lying flat on the workbench. "I really dodged a bullet there."

"Yeah, I guess you did, Baird. I guess you really did."


	30. 16 weeks before E Day: 1259 Baird

16 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Halvo Bay, 1259 hours]

Damon sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the clock. Eleven seconds left. His fists tightened on his thighs. Ten seconds. _'This can't be happening–_Nine_–No, no, no–_Eight_–It's just a long, horrible nightmare–_Seven_–Time has no meaning in dreams–_Six_–Any moment now I'll wake up–_Five_–and Sharon will be here–_Four_–I'll tell her what I dreamed and she'll tell me it will–_Three_–never happen–_Two_–Oh God oh God oh God oh God–_One_–This can't be happening–_Zero.

It was noon. Sharon would be walking down the aisle right now.

Damon leaned forward and puked violently into the trash can wedged between his knees.

He'd found out the hard way that throwing up into a toilet bowl full of water with any kind of force causes unpleasant backsplash. Vomiting into a trash can and carefully tipping the results into the toilet for flushing was much more sanitary. He rinsed out the can and then moved on to brushing his teeth. He'd read somewhere that repeated exposure to stomach acid would eventually erode your tooth enamel all the way down to the root. Knowing what he did about chemicals, he didn't doubt it.

He and Sharon had been lab partners in chemistry class when they were seventeen. She was better at visualizing the tweaks to the electrostatic forces of attraction that could create different chemical bonds, but he had a steadier hand and a knack for taking the flask off the burner at precisely the right time. She liked to whisper things in his ear about chemistry that always had a sexual connotation. Usually while he was concentrating on some delicate operation. One time it resulted in a very loud, very noxious-smelling explosion. Later that night he'd made her regret ruining his perfect grade. He made her regret it so well that she threatened to do it again.

He stopped brushing his teeth.

James would be in bed with her tonight.

His face in the mirror had that greenish tinge again.

James would be the one taking off her clothes.

James would be the one making her beg.

The trash can was out of reach, so he retched into the sink. This time there was blood mixed in with the bile.


	31. E Day plus 14 years 33 weeks: 0745 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 33 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 0745]

Dom had gone to find Maria as soon as he'd gotten permission from Marcus and Hoffman. His ten days of leave had expired three days ago, and he'd expected to be a nervous wreck every minute he was away from her. But during that glorious 260 hours of leave he'd come to realize that Maria was just as precious to the nomads as she was to him. She fit in seamlessly with the other orphaned children, which meant that every adult considered her their responsibility. And the nomads valued their children above all else.

They also had a simple strategy for keeping the children hidden during battles such as the one this morning. The younger children thought it was a game; for the older ones it was a comforting habit.

"It was great!" Maria was giving him one of her twisted—but still beautiful—smiles. "We played hide-and-seek with JEEB, and I won!" She leaned in toward Dom and whispered, "I hid behind the rain barrel near Beard's shop." ('Beard' was as close as she could get to pronouncing 'Baird'.) "I got a new pair of socks for being the last one JEEB found!" She waved the woolen socks proudly. "Would you help me put them on?"

Dom didn't even try to keep the smile off his face. "Sure, baby, let me have those." JEEB was programmed to randomly pick the "winners''; each under-age nomad was wearing a burst-transmitter that sent a locator pulse to an adult's tracker every ten minutes. Since he lived with them now, Dom had been given a tracker as well, so he could see where she was six times an hour. That did a lot to keep him calm while he was on duty.

Dom took his time slipping Maria's delicate feet into the clean new socks. The ankles he held weren't quite as bony as they had been two weeks ago. Sharon seemed to notice too.

"She's gained weight, Dom. Three years, and it was all we could do to keep her from getting any thinner. But along comes Dominic Santiago, and suddenly she's got an appetite for more than just fake bacon bits."

He was slowly getting accustomed to these flickers of hope, but he knew he'd never take them for granted. "She still has trouble with names and holding on to new skills." Maria stroked his hair as he knelt in front of where she sat on a metal chest. "But I think she really does remember me." She didn't seem to know they were talking about her. Unless she was being addressed directly, Maria was practically oblivious to other people's conversations. And she still had to be called 'Mary' to get her attention. Dom could have cared less about that, and about being called 'Donny'. All that mattered was that she wanted to be around him. It was like the electric feeling he'd gotten when Maria had first started paying attention to him. Back then he had hardly dared to believe she might like him better than the other boys vying for her attention; these days he was amazed each time he woke with her lying next to him, instead of the achingly empty arms he'd had for fourteen years. His bed had always felt too light without another body in it, as though it might float off the ground without her to pin it down.

The little gray-haired woman called Mrs. Wilson tapped Dom on the shoulder. "Excuse me, Mr. Santiago." Dom had been working hard not to resent the sweet lady's demands on Maria's time. He was having more success with it lately. "It's time for class," she said. Maria went to "school" along with the five-year-olds, learning how to tie her own shoes and count dried beans and things like that. Mrs. Wilson had been a retired principal before E-Day, and she was still a very gifted teacher. She had endless patience with Maria's limited ability to learn.

"Sure thing, Mrs. Wilson." Dom reluctantly finished putting on Maria's socks and shoes. Mrs. Wilson and the other children in her class made a chain of held hands, and she led them to another tent.

Dom watched her go from the open flap of the main tent. He stood there staring even after they had all disappeared into their makeshift classroom. Finally Sharon slipped an arm through his and tugged gently.

"Come on, Dom. I'll walk the perimeter with you for a while."

He mustered up a close-lipped smile for her. "Thanks, Sharon. I'd like that."

Cole joined them halfway through Dom's first circuit of the checkpoints. He clapped Dom on the shoulder, which never failed to make his knees buckle just a bit. "Nice little tussle we had with the grubs, huh?" He sniffed theatrically. "I love the reek of Locust blood in the morning; smells like ass-whooping." Cole looked at Sharon as they stopped along the barricade for a moment to admire the sappers who were burning the pureed Grubs. He had to stand a little distance away from her and Dom so his significant bulk didn't overload the scaffolding's weight-bearing capacity.

He, like Dom, must have heard Sharon screaming at the Corpser earlier, and could see she was still ruminating on it. Cole might be big and brash, but he was very good at reading people. "Sharon..." he began. Sharon leaned on the barricade and turned her face to him. It looked like she knew exactly what he was going to ask. "What was all that about a little girl?"

Sharon ran a slow hand over her face, probably to give her a moment to compose her expression. "That was my daughter, Grace. Five years after E-Day, a Corpser got past the barricades in Montevado and reached her school."

"Shit," Dom said, looking at his feet. He knew the ending to that kind of story. He tried not to think too hard about Benito and Sylvia unless it was the good, living memories of them.

Sharon continued in a flat tone that said she had had to explain her particular hatred of Corpsers many times. "I went to the classroom as soon as I heard. I found a hand in the rubble that was probably hers. It had her bracelet on, anyway, but the skin was so charred I couldn't tell if it was really hers or not. You know how little girls like to trade jewelry. We never uncovered any other body parts. The concrete roof had fallen in on the classroom mostly in one piece and everything beneath it had been crushed down to about an inch deep. They decided to just leave it where it fell, like a mass grave, since they wouldn't be able to tell one chunk of human from another. We used earth-movers to pack dirt over it so animals couldn't get to them."

Dom wanted to say _God, I'm so sorry_, but he knew it wouldn't help. Sharon went on, still tearless.

"I think that's what did it for James. The hand. About a month later, he deliberately set off a landmine."

"God. I—I..." Cole's fallback '_That sucks'_ comment wasn't going to cut it this time.

"I'm all right, Cole. It was ten years ago. I'm all cried out."

Dom was pretty sure she was lying. A parent never, ever got over losing a child. And if she'd been there when James blew himself up ... yeah, that was the stuff of nightmares. But he didn't call Sharon on it. _'Let her keep her dignity.'_

They were all quiet for a bit. Then Dom had to ask; he needed to understand why Maria had left him so suddenly. "Is that why you left the COG? Because your family was gone?"

"Yup, you got it. Not long after James died, I was walking to work one day and I just didn't stop." She shook her head slightly, looking out over the smoking battlefield. "I simply couldn't be around people any more. Couldn't pretend I was a whole, functional person any longer. How could life just go on when my baby had been murdered and my husband had killed himself? No one really seemed to care but me. I think everyone was too numb to loss by then. I kept walking right out of Montevado and didn't go back." She smiled a little. "I wouldn't have survived if DENIS and JEEB hadn't followed me. When I finally came out of the fog I was in, I'd been wandering in the woods for days and I was dehydrated and nearly starving. DENIS led me to a spring he'd found and started finding berry bushes and stuff." She let out a tiny laugh. "You know JEEB even electrocuted a rabbit for me? It was so heavy for him that he was only floating about a foot off the ground when he brought it back. That's when I knew I could to make it out there. The robots were all the help and company I needed."

Dom looked around them. Sure enough, there was DENIS, hovering on top of the barricade about thirty yards to their right.

"About two months after that, I came across a family living out there. By then I'd recovered enough to help them. They were a little weirded out by DENIS and JEEB at first, but people quickly discover how useful they are for avoiding Grubs and Stranded." She shrugged. "It just sort of snowballed from there. We gradually found more and more tiny groups of people who were too weak or injured or scared to get to Ephyra and didn't want to join the Stranded gangs. So we took them with us. One family had a pack of bloodhounds. We found more hunting dogs on the way and started breeding them. Dogs don't go feral nearly as fast as cats.

"We stopped finding people about a year ago. Probably there was just no one left on their own. It was very, very slow going, but eventually we got to Jacinto, and then followed the evacuation trail here."

They all stood for a while, just being there. Safe for the moment. Which was all anyone could ask for these days.

"Sharon, what do you think it means that our spouses went completely crazy when our kids died, but we didn't?" Dom had a feeling that a lot of his future self-respect might hang on her answer.

"It's not that they loved the kids more and we loved them less, if that's what you mean. We haven't moved on; we'll never 'move on'." She looked out into the forest, her chin high and her face determined. "They chose to hold their grief close; we chose to take our grief out on the sons of bitches that killed our children. Neither way is nobler than the other. The only difference is that you and I are still able to stop someone else's children from dying." She finally locked eyes with him. "And if I can do that for just one parent, my whole life since Grace has been worth it."

"Amen," Dom said.

"Frickin' A," said Cole.

**# # #**

**Quote-Theft of the Day: Okay, everybody should know this one. That "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" line from "Apocalypse Now" has been stolen more times than I can count.**


	32. EDay plus 14 years 33 weeks: 1300 Marcus

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 33 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1300 hours]

It took almost six hours to repair the damage to the barricades at Theta-Two and Nu-One, but the Gears around Marcus chattered the whole time about the robots. Apparently KEDAR had helped defend Nu-One. The younger soldiers were very excited about its electrocution capabilities.

"You should have seen it, Sarge!" The kid couldn't have been more than nineteen, and he was practically bouncing up and down on his toes. "It turned into this big ball of blue light and then zzzzzzap! Field full of flash-boiled Grubs!"

"Yeah," another continued, "they were really regretting wearing all that metal today, I tell you what."

"Boy, the _stink_, though," said a corporal. "It smelled like burning pig manure over here for at least an hour."

"Speaking of pig manure," said the squad's lieutenant. "You are all on livestock duty tomorrow."

There was a collective groan. "Why do we have to do civvie stuff, L.T.?" one complained.

"You're not doing 'civvie stuff', Private—as much as it might give me great pleasure to see you shoveling shit instead of talking it—you're going to be overseeing the slaughter to make sure no one makes off with more than their share. Sidearms only, we don't want to look like riot police."

The lieutenant said to Marcus, "I think we're just about done here. Why don't you let Delta have the afternoon off?"

"Thanks, L.T." Marcus turned to his squad. "Jace, Carmine, Sam, Bernie. Go get something to eat and hit the sack. Debriefing's at 1900."

They all gave him some variation of "You got it, Marcus," and hustled off to the mess hall or their bunks, depending on whether their personal priority was sleep or food.

Marcus steeled himself to go to the med center for his usual post-battle tour of the casualties. As was his habit, he stopped into the mobile CIC to get an idea of the numbers from Anya. Seeing a look of stunned horror on the face of a squad leader was not good for morale.

Anya nodded to him as he came in and wrapped up her conversation with Sharle, the emergency management chief. Knowing him as well as she did, she already had the charge nurse on her tac/com by the time she walked over to Marcus.

"Casualty report for the battle this morning," she requested. Anya began to repeat back the nurse's words as they came through her earpiece. "We've got fourteen seriously wounded who have been stabilized, three Gears who had to have limbs amputated but are no longer in critical condition, and—" She frowned. "Are you sure? Well, that's ... unexpected. Um, okay, thanks."

"What is it?" Damn, but Marcus hated bad news.

"They said we've got twenty-three minor wounds, fourteen major wounds, and three amputees, but no fatalities."

Marcus's mind went blank for a second, simply not able to absorb that kind of information. "What did you say?"

She started to smile. "No fatalities. Zero losses."

"Are they sure?"

"All sectors have reported in, Marcus. Everyone is accounted for. Everyone." Anya started to laugh, a clear ringing sound like tapping on a glass bell with a spoon. "No fatalities. Zero mortality. I can't believe it." The half-dozen techs manning the CIC turned in surprise. Laughter in the Combat Information Center was as startling as a balloon popping. "No fatalities," she told them. "Zero losses!"

"Well, well," said Donneld Mathieson. "There's a sentence I haven't heard in a long time. And only in training exercises."

"That's ... that's great, Anya." Marcus managed to say. "I'll be at the med center if you need me."

He walked slowly through the slushy street. _'That can't be right. Someone _always _dies. I'll get there and one of the Gears will have bled out from the amputation or something.'_

But when he found Doc Hayman out back of the hospital smoking a cigarette, she confirmed it. The elderly physician leaned against the wall, contentedly blowing cigarette smoke out of her nostrils like a sleeping dragon. "No fatalities, Sergeant. Plenty of wounded, but no combat losses." She closed her eyes and let her white head fall back against the brick wall. "No dead soldiers today. Enjoy it, Fenix; it's not likely to happen again."

Marcus went inside, naturally gravitating toward the worst cases. He stopped outside the room with the three Gears who had lost limbs. They were all male. One had lost a hand, another an arm, and the third was missing his left leg below the knee. But they were sleeping quietly under light sedation, and the cardiac monitors showed nearly identical heart rhythms. They were going to live. And all of them had two of the three joints left in the abbreviated limb, which meant greater range of movement once they had been fitted with prosthetics. The one with half a leg could even learn to walk again.

"Are you Sergeant Fenix?"

Marcus turned around. There was a middle-aged man in all brown clothing hesitating in the doorway.

"Yes, that's me."

The guy came in and stood by one of the beds. He stroked the forehead of the man-child who had lost a hand. "My boy's only seventeen and a half," he said to Marcus.

Marcus tensed up. He'd been the target of many a parent's grief over the years, but he'd never grown a skin thick enough that it didn't get to him. Nevertheless, he stood there, prepared to take whatever vitriol the man could dish out.

"He looks a lot older because of the T-boosters," the father continued, "but he's only been an active Gear for two years." The man rubbed his damp eyes with the back of his hand. "I thought he'd die out there. Today or yesterday or any of the days before that. The mortar that fell into the Port today blew off his right hand." He touched the heavily bandaged stump. "You can't hold anything but a pistol with one hand, and you definitely can't reload, so he won't be put on the frontline any more. He'll get to be support staff now, and since the war is basically over, he'll probably never see action again."

Marcus couldn't believe it when he saw the man smile at him, his palm still resting on his sleeping son's forehead. "They told me you were the one who shot the Grub with the Mortar before it could fire another one and kill him." The father used a clean rag to pull something out of his jacket pocket. He came over and presented it to Marcus. "You look more like a whiskey kind of man, but this is very old brandy. His mother and I were saving it for toasting the end of the war, but we really didn't feel like it after Jacinto." He pressed the glass flask into Marcus's hand. "We wanted to give you something, but everything else we've got is pretty much just old clothes and salvaged junk. So take this, please." He laughed a little. "Unless you want some old buttons or a pair of leather shoelaces." Seeing Marcus start to protest, he added, "You'll have to, or the missus will get her nose out of joint. She's already mad she didn't have the materials to make you a bundt cake or something equally fattening."

"Okay, I ... thanks. I'll make sure to share some with my squad."

"You do that, Sergeant Fenix. You do that." He went back to stroking his son's forehead, smiling softly. He seemed to instantly forget about Marcus's presence.

Delta Squad's debriefing at 1900 came right after Tau's and Rho's and took quite a while, but the mood wasn't nearly as dark as usual. Being the youngest in the squad, Jace was the most encouraged by Death's conspicuous absence that day. Even Hoffman seemed a little lighter on his feet.

Sharon's part of the debriefing came at the end. Although they all understood the basics of how KEDAR and SEPDI worked, her explanation of the laser and the atomizing rockets basically came down to: "Only Baird would get it." Delta took her word for it.

The Chairman escorted Sharon and the sulking Baird to his office for a run-down of her technology. As if he would understand any of it. But Anya gave him points for trying. If there was anyone who could sit through hour after hour of techno-babble and not fall asleep, it was Prescott.

After Delta had dispersed, Anya had her own after-debriefing meeting with Hoffman. The Colonel called it "re-de-debriefing". Anya appreciated the little inside jokes she'd developed with the Colonel over the years. The COG army was a rapidly shrinking family and she was more than happy to latch on to whatever threads of continuity that she could.

After the re-de-debriefing, Anya was finally dismissed at about 2300. She had only been in her quarters for about half an hour when she heard Marcus's particular knock. It was odd for him to just come by without hinting to her first.

"Marcus," she said as he came in her tiny quarters. "This is a surprise."

"I can go if you're busy." He took up most of the free space in her closet-like room, and he was holding something wrapped in a white rag.

"No! No, no. Sit." She indicated one of the two straight-backed metal chairs flanking her card-table desk.

Marcus unfolded the cloth around the bottle he'd brought. "You have any glasses?" he asked as he sat down.

"Sure." Anya dug out two metal mugs from underneath a stack of folders. "Where did you get the brandy?"

He held it in his hand and looked at the label like it was in a foreign language. "Some Gear's father gave it to me today. Kid lost his hand, but his dad said someone told him I shot the Grub before it could fire another mortar at the same spot. He said he and the kid's mother wanted me to have this. And I promised I'd share it with some of my squad, so ..."

"Well, we'd better not disappoint him, then."

Marcus poured an inch of brandy into each of the tin mugs and they both took brief sips.

Anya tapped her fingernails soundlessly against the side of the mug. What was he doing here unannounced? His bandana was still on, which meant he hadn't come to sleep with her, and they'd already had a thorough debriefing, so there was nothing to really talk about. Was something wrong?

She began to worry in earnest when she saw him start to smile as he stared into his liquor. In the seventeen years that she'd known him, he'd only shown her one true smile: the day she had planned to break it off with him.

About a week and a half after the UIR surrendered he had been called to the CIC to meet with one of the infantry captains. While he was waiting for said officer to show up, Anya had planned to execute Operation: Let Marcus Down Gently. As she was staring at the back-lit map of Ephyra trying to marshal her courage, Marcus had passed close behind her and left a business-size card on the edge of the table. He went to stand by the radar stations as she read it. All that was written in his impeccable handwriting was: The Blue Room, 1780 SW Nassar Ave, the 16th at 1800?

Anya had stared down at it for a full thirty seconds, just blinking_. 'Is this what I think it is?'_ She looked at Marcus for confirmation. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, and nodded when she met his eyes. Anya nodded too, lifting the card in acknowledgement. That was when he had smiled for the briefest of moments. It was just a quick flash of teeth in the gloom of the green-lit CIC, but it was definitely a smile. Then he turned away and gave his undivided attention to a map of Tyrus.

Tonight Marcus's smile lasted much longer, and it was a good deal wider. No, it was a grin, an actual _grin_.

'_Oh my God,'_ thought Anya. _'He's finally cracked.'_

"Are you okay?" Anya put a hand on his arm. Marcus started to laugh, which made all the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Marcus never laughed. _Ever._

It was a surprisingly light, baritone sound, not at all like his deep bass speaking voice. It was the most beautiful music Anya had ever heard, and she forgot her alarm.

Instead of slipping his arm out from under her hand like he normally would, he put his own hand on top of hers. He stopped laughing, and the grin became a contented smile. Anya felt a little light-headed. She'd known forever that his teeth were white and very straight, but she'd never thought smiling could lift his whole face like that. Marcus had always been uncommonly handsome, but right now he was astonishing.

Marcus rubbed his thumb back and forth over her wrist. "Everybody lives, Anya." He looked at her, and her breathing stopped. His eyes were the most gorgeous steely-blue, not their usual gray.

"Just this once," he said. "Everybody lives."

They sat there in her quarters for nearly an hour, just sipping their brandy in silence, and Marcus's smile never faded at all.

**# # #**

**A bouquet of pink roses for anyone who recognized the quote from the first season of the new "Doctor Who" series.**


	33. E Day plus 14 years 36 weeks: 0945 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 36 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 0945 hours]

Baird was on bouncer duty with Bernie that morning at the civvie-only mess hall. The Gears in each sector had their own mess halls which few non-military were allowed into; it tended to cause a lot of complaining if civilians were mixed in with the soldiers, watching the Gears be served 2.5 times the normal rations. For some reason the nomads never protested, or even gave Baird or the others sidelong looks, so Hoffman allowed them to eat with the Gears. Apparently Sharon was a strict disciplinarian when it came to teaching her people to just get over the disparity.

The other reason the nomads didn't argue about their rations came running up to Baird and Bernie with a dead rabbit in its mouth. The Gears on barricade duty let the bloodhounds in and out of the gates with impunity because they always brought back game for them as well as the nomads. Hoffman turned a blind eye to the breach in protocol.

"Ooo, what you got there, Rookie?" Bernie cooed. Rookie seemed to have a soft spot for Delta Squad and was always bringing them disgusting wild animals to eat. Baird wouldn't touch them. Besides not wanting to catch whatever fleas or parasites they were carrying, all he wanted in the way of meat was dead cow, dead pig, dead fish or dead chicken. Sometimes he ate the venison stew just so Bernie would get off his back, but that was as far is his city-boy appetite would go.

Rookie wagged that furry tree limb they called a tail and shook the rabbit proudly, as if making it look alive would seem more appetizing to Baird. He pushed to dog toward Bernie with the tip of his combat boot. "No way I'm eating that, Rookie. Give it to Bernie; she'll probably have it raw."

Bernie "accidentally" elbowed Baird in the side as she bent to take the rabbit from Rookie. "You should try it, Blondie. It's like chicken, but sweeter." Ever since she'd socked him in the jaw back in the Delta barracks in Jacinto, and he'd given her the Cleaver from a skirmish with the Grubs, the ice between them had thawed a bit. Baird decided to let it be because Cole liked her so much. No sense in alienating his only friend's buddies.

"I'll pass, Granny. I'm not keen on getting tapeworms from gnawing on bunnies."

Bernie opened her mouth to deliver some sassy reply, but Rookie's head snapped up and he went stiff. The hair stood up all along his spine. He was so still for a moment that he looked like a taxidermied trophy.

"Oh, no," said Baird.

Rookie started spinning in counterclockwise circles. Baird fumbled for his tac/com. "Anya! Anya, you there? Rookie's indicating Locust presence in Sector G!"

"Copy that, Baird," Anya's smooth voice came through his earpiece. "I'm scrambling all nearby squads to your position." As she was speaking, Rookie stared at the asphalt and began to whine. The street started vibrating under Baird's feet. He and Bernie grabbed the Lancers they had hidden from the civvies' prying eyes.

"Tell them to get their asses the frak over here, 'cause the Grubs are coming up right underneath us!"

"Everyone get to cover!" Bernie shouted to the street at large. "We got Locust contact! Crack on!"

The dumbass civvies started screaming and trampling each other. Even after fifteen years, the primal fear of seven-foot-tall monsters with machine guns hadn't lessened one bit.

Baird took half a dozen steps to the left and determined by the decreasing vibrations that the Locust were going to come up behind him, in the town square at the other end of the street. When he looked, the manhole cover there was dancing like a spun penny. "Bernie! This way!" He ran to the cover of a livestock truck parked about fifteen yards from the sewer access. "They're using our own tunnels," he told Anya as the streets leading to the square began to buckle upwards. The vibrations were so strong now that he could feel them in his teeth.

About fifteen seconds before he estimated the E-hole would erupt, he felt a heavy slap on his back and a momentary surge in his armor's power. The magnetic generators in the humps on the backs of COG armor didn't just allow a soldier to quickly sling and unsling weapons; they also created a magnetic field that could deflect incoming bullets by altering their trajectory very slightly. It didn't work at point blank range or for high-speed sniper rifle rounds and things like incendiary grenades, but it was enough to keep a Gear from taking an ordinary slug in his or her head or center mass. The field only extended about six inches in front of the Gear so that the magnetic forces wouldn't interfere with their own firing. Naturally, it was Sharon who had thought it up.

He looked over his shoulder with a certain amount of dread. The idiotic risk-taker herself was crouched behind the truck's front tire, while Baird was shielded by the engine block.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Baird shouted over the increasing rumble.

She jabbed a finger at his power pack. "Upgrade!" she yelled.

"Get the frak out of here, now!" Shooting from behind a barricade was all well and good, but today she'd run right into what was soon to be a killing ground, and she wasn't wearing any kind of armor at all. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

"I need to see if there's a Corpser!" she shouted. Cole had told him about how Grace had died, and Baird had felt like an instant shithead for not finding it out himself. He'd assumed that one of the young teenage girls who arrived with her was Grace, but he hadn't bothered to check. He didn't want to recognize her, the daughter who should have been his, walking around the Port with James's features stamped all over her. That would have been one insult too many.

"Where the hell is your laser, then?"

"Out of juice!" She held up a bulky-looking pistol. "I have this, though!"

"You really think you can take down a Corpser with a frigging _pistol_?" Baird was just about to question her sanity when the E-hole burst up in a fountain of shattered paving stones and flying dirt. Eta Squad must have been closer than he'd thought, because they came in from the east side of the square, already firing. As Baird leaned out around the truck to start firing his Lancer, he saw Dom using a Longshot from the corner of an old bank. Marcus appeared at his side and sprinted in a hunchbacked run for one of the many low sandbag walls in this section of the Port. Parry's combat engineers had placed them in heavily populated areas for just this kind of situation.

As he used magazine after magazine to whittle down Grubs, he saw out of the corner of his eye that Sharon was lying flat and watching the battle from the gap underneath the truck, apparently only interested in Corpsers. _'At least she's keeping her frakking head down.'_

After about forty or fifty Grubs, Baird ran out of ammo. "I'm out!" he shouted to Bernie, who was taking cover behind another sandbag wall.

"Me too," she yelled. "I'm going to go get more magazines!" She ran in the direction of the ammo carts that the sappers had brought within a couple of blocks. A Gear that Baird didn't recognized filled her position.

Sharon nudged Baird's elbow. She pressed the strange-looking pistol into Baird's hand. "There's no recoil, so you don't have to compensate!" she yelled over the deafening bursts of gunfire.

Baird gripped the pistol and cocked it, shouting at her. "Thanks very frigging much! Now get the hell out of here!" Then he forgot all about her for a minute or so because a Berserker lurched out of the hole in the paving stones.

The Berserker started charging random Gears' positions, not caring that she was knocking over her own males as she flailed her massive arms blindly. Sandbags burst in billows of tan as she smashed through the makeshift walls. The suspended sand made the shapes within look like blurry silhouettes, but the human screams and the wet splattering sounds told the story anyway.

Baird was waiting for the Berserker to come within pistol-range of his position when a Drone peppered the grill of the truck with Hammerburst rounds. The mag field deflected the bullets away from his head, but instinct told him to pull it back into cover anyway. He heard the Drone get cut down by a sniper shot, probably Dom.

"Don't waste the rounds on the Drones!" Sharon told him. "There are only six, and it's a two-part process! Wait for the Berserker!"

"I told you to get the hell out of here!"

"Tough shit, Corporal!"

"Dammit!" Baird couldn't leave the battlefield long enough to throw her out, and she'd just come right back anyway.

He heard the Berserker's screams grow nearer. Baird chanced sticking his head out again. This time the monstrosity was close enough. He aimed for her head and fired. It was a slow round that looked like a riot cop's bean-bag shot, but when it hit the female's head, it splattered her with bright yellow goo. He looked at Sharon with wide eyes.

"Again!" she yelled. "Two parts!"

Baird took aim and fired a second time. This one turned out to be a tracer round. The flaming streak hit the Berserker square in the face, and her head burst into flame when it made contact. The Grub roared, clawing at her burning face with both massive paws. She looked like a gruesome, living candle.

"We call it the napalm pistol!" Sharon yelled. "That ought to occupy her until we get heavy weapons in here!" Baird could already hear a Centaur growling through a side street across the square. He stared at the pistol in his hand. He wanted one. He wanted one in the worst way.

Just then the Gear in Bernie's old position took a Boomshot round to the face. It was from far enough away that it didn't kill the helmeted Gear, but he wouldn't be getting up any time soon. Before he could grab her, Sharon ducked and rolled across the buckled asphalt into the downed Gear's position. A Boomer came around the cover of a burned-out car and was only about twenty feet away. He seemed to think Baird was the real threat because he slammed the truck with another round.

"Damon, stay in cover!" She picked up the half-dead Gear's Mark 1 Lancer.

"No, Sharon, don't!" Baird yelled.

But she'd already fired. She got off two bursts before she cried out and dropped the assault rifle. The slugs hadn't done any real damage to the Boomer, but it did get its attention long enough for Baird to lean out and fire two rounds into the thing's chest, lighting it up like a torch. There were no more Grubs in the immediate area, so Baird ran over to the sandbag wall. Sure enough, the heavy recoil from the Retro Lancer had dislocated her acromio-clavicular joint. Bernie cut down the Boomer with a spray of bullets from her own Mark 2 Lancer as she returned.

"You idiot!" Baird yelled at Sharon as he probed it with his fingers. "You've popped your collarbone out of place!" Her face was bone white and her eyes were glassy with pain, but he was not sympathetic. "Why the hell would you do that?" The knocked-out Gear was definitely not pretty anymore, but he was breathing fine so Baird ignored him for the moment.

"Cover fire," she said woozily. Bernie took cover in Baird's old spot. Baird pointed at her. "She was right there! She would have gotten it if you hadn't pulled the trigger right before her!"

"I didn't look," Sharon admitted. Bernie got off a few bursts while Baird hunched over Sharon. He heard two tremendous booms that meant the Berserker was now minced meat. A few more blasts from the Centaur's cannon and all firing stopped. They'd gotten all of the Grubs.

Bernie came over to them and attended to the unconscious Gear. "What happened to Sharon?"

"This frigging _moron _fired a Retro Lancer!"

"Ah," Bernie said understandingly. "Shoulder or collarbone?"

"Collarbone," Baird said through his gritted teeth. He pointed at the napalm pistol. "Take that, and don't lose it. I'm getting Sharon to the med center." He pulled her to her feet with one arm around her ribcage.

"I can walk," Sharon insisted. She looked like she was going to tip over any second.

"Yeah, but you're not." Baird grabbed his empty Lancer in his left hand and hooked his right arm around the back of Sharon's thighs and lifted her up against his armored chest. "Just shut up."

Sharon gave up protesting and just used her uninjured hand to get a grip on the shoulder strap of his armor. Her head rested on the gel under-layer of his armor's collar. Her warm breath on his neck caused a flood of memories he'd rather forget.

He forcibly fought back the wave of images and sounds and carried her all the way over to the med center in Delta's section of the Port. He barged right past the charge nurse and found an empty gurney. Baird plopped her down in it none too gently, but Sharon didn't make more than a tiny grunt. He snagged a male nurse by the sleeve. "Can you reduce a dislocated clavicle?" Baird could have done it himself, but he'd rather have a professional to blame if it went wrong.

"How bad is it?"

"Type 1."

The nurse hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders. "All right. A closed reduction only takes a second anyway." He pulled Sharon's arm out to the side and worked the joint expertly. Clearly he'd done this innumerable times_. 'Friggin' Retros,'_ Baird thought. _'There ought to be a minimum weight requirement to use one.'_ The collarbone popped back in with a soft crunching sound.

"Ow," was all Sharon said. She was half out of it.

"Put some ice on it," the nurse advised, "tell her to use a sling for two weeks and she should be fine. We don't have enough painkillers to give mild cases, sorry."

Baird growled, "Living with the pain should teach her not to fire a Gear's rifle, anyhow."

"I reckon it will." The nurse went to tend to more painkiller-worthy patients.

"Th-thanks," Sharon stuttered. She was right on the edge of unconsciousness, but Baird still didn't completely trust her not to wander off. He pointed at her face so closely that her eyes crossed a little bit as she tried to follow his finger.

"Sit," he ordered. "Stay."

"Woof-woof," she mumbled just before she passed out.

Baird froze, still pointing at her. _'She can't possibly remember that. It was twenty years ago.'_ He lowered his hand and backed up few steps as if she were going to rise off the bed like a zombie. _'I'm imagining things.' _He sidled out the door to get an ice pack and a triangle sling. _'It's the lack of sleep, that's all.'_

He spent the rest of the day trying various ways to convince himself of that.

**# # #**

**If you were one of the first 8 to read this chapter, I'm really, really sorry about the mistakes I had to fix. I blame it on my dog.  
**

**I know the magnetic "backpack" lets the Gears carry weapons, but it always bothers me that (except for the jinxed Carmines) no one in Delta ever gets hit in the head or chest except in-game. A Locust can't be _that_ bad of a shot. So I made up the bullet-deflecting magnetic field. I know it exists in neither our universe nor the Gears universe, but it helps me sleep at night.**


	34. 18 weeks before E Day: 0030 Baird

18 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Halvo Bay, 0030 hours]

Sharon's breath was hot on the side of his neck. He could tell from the hitch in her breathing that she was getting close to crying, which she only did when someone had died.

She had her arms locked uncomfortably tight around his neck, but he couldn't complain because he was probably cracking her ribcage from crushing her to him so tightly. He wished desperately that there were a way to weld her to himself so they couldn't be separated. A ceremonial quote floated to the top of his mind, and he pushed it away violently, but not before some of it got through: _'...and the two shall become one flesh.'_ But it sounded like Sharon wasn't going to agree to that. She wasn't going to keep her end of their deal.

"I have to go with him tomorrow to apply for the marriage license," she said.

Damon wobbled a little, tightening his arms around her until her ribs creaked. The lawn felt like it was tilting underneath him.

"So that's it, then? You're just going to give up on us?" he demanded.

"I have to," she whispered miserably, pressing her forehead against his shoulder. "My family needs me to."

"Sharon—" Her titanium necklace was cold even through his shirt, but it still felt like it was burning into his flesh.

"Even if your parents gave you your inheritance right this minute, it wouldn't be enough to save us. It wouldn't even come close."

"Six million dollars isn't enough? Exactly how much did your father lose?" Sharon pushed free of his embrace, but he kept a grip on her upper arms.

"It wasn't just his money that was stolen. His brothers and uncles invested most of their stock with that firm, too."

"Shit. Your entire family tree is flat broke?"

Her cheeks burned with shame. She stared at the grass. "We ... we ran out of food yesterday. Tomorrow they're going to cut off the electricity to the estate. Our friends have given us as much as they could afford without hurting their own families. And nobody wants to buy an eight million dollar house with cash, which still wouldn't be enough even if we could sell it."

"So instead they're going to sell _you_, like you're a frigging cow or something?" Sharon didn't deny this, and she wouldn't look at him. "You should have told me about the food, I could have—"

She squirmed free of his hands and wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold. "That's not the point, Damon. Your help would be a temporary solution. There's no other way. I'm sorry." She started to cry, and her voice quavered like the playback from a warped vinyl record. "I waited as long as I could. Too long. We've run out of time."

He couldn't believe it. It couldn't be over. They'd been together for ten years. They were going to get married and build things that changed the world and have scary-smart kids and become grumpy old prunes together. "Sharon—"

She sobbed once, violently. "I'm sorry, Damon. I'm so sorry." Then she took off running for the rear gate.

"Sharon, wait!" He sprinted after her, but she'd always been faster. She made it to the people-door in the huge gate long before him and slammed it behind her. It had an automatic lock that clicked shut when she closed it. There was no keypad on either side of the gate; everything was on remote, which he hadn't brought with him because DENIS had bypassed the system. Now the robot was up in his bedroom suite, out of earshot.

"Sharon, please." He thrust his arm through the wrought-iron bars, extending his hand toward her. He had the irrational thought that if he could just get her to touch him one more time, she wouldn't be able to go through with it. Apparently she thought so too, because she stayed carefully out of his reach. "Sharon, come here. Talk to me. We can still find a way to fix this."

She shook her head, and the weeping started in earnest. "It can't be fixed. Nothing can be fixed. Everything is broken." She sucked in a noisy breath that sounded just as terrible as the sobs, pressing a hand against her stomach like it was hurting her.

"Don't forget me," she said. "Don't forget that I loved you."

It felt like he was being pulled into a meat grinder by his arms.

She turned and walked haltingly toward the wooded path to her estate, still pressing her hand to her stomach.

"Sharon, wait! Sharon! Sharon, come back!" There was no way to climb over the gate, or he would have. His parents had strung razor wire all around the estate walls once they'd learned he and Sharon been sneaking around. Even if he were willing to rip himself to shreds—and in another minute he might be—he would get hopelessly tangled in the spirals and never reach her before she got home, where her goddamned parents would hold him off at gunpoint if necessary. He could run up three flights and get DENIS, but he still wouldn't get to her in time. _"_Sharon! Don't leave! Come back here!" She kept going, faltering over non-existent obstacles.

His hands seized the iron bars and he shook the gate on its massive hinges. _"GOD DAMN YOU, SHARON, COME BACK HERE RIGHT FRAKKING NOW!"_

She was almost to the trees, tripping and making awful sounds that reminded him of a dying animal. "I'm sorry, Damon! I'm so sorry!" Not turning around, she covered her ears with both hands and let out a horrifying scream of frustration and loss that made every muscle in his body seize up.

Sharon stumbled away into the dark.

Damon fell asleep sitting upright against the gate, waiting just in case she came back. He woke up at dawn and had a bit of trouble turning the handle on the back door because the cuts from an attempt at the razor wire had scabbed over, making his fingers stiff.

When he got up to his room, DENIS was gone.

**# # #**

**Okay, so maybe I did spill a little bit of soap [opera] on my keyboard, but that's where the story went and I just wrote it down.**

**Brace yourselves for a little more Baird-related soapiness in the future. Leave a comment if you think it's too out of character.  
**


	35. EDay&14years36 weeks:1200 Marcus & Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 36 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1200 hours]

Anya wanted to be a frontline Gear.

Marcus was not a fan of this idea. Mostly because he knew how dangerous it was, but partly because she'd never seen him in action. He'd been told that he yelled and cursed a lot and was —in the words of the late Benjamin Carmine— "pants-shittingly scary" when he was in the zone. He would also admit to using the Lancer's chainsaw a lot more often than he needed.

So the "partly" bit was that he was worried about what Anya might think of him. The "mostly" bit was lying on the operating table on the other side of the glass from Marcus.

The young Gear who'd taken a Boomshot round to the head was having what was left of his face pieced back together by Dr. Hayman. If she worked very quickly, she might be able to save one of his eyes and most of the skin on his face. But his jaw and cheekbones had been shattered and he'd lost all of his teeth except the molars. His head was going to be held together by plates and wires for at least a couple of months, and even after he got the stitches out he was still going to make Maria look like a supermodel.

Thinking of Anya's delicate beauty being FUBAR'd like that made Marcus want to lock her in _Sovereign_'s security vault until they got to Vectes.

Hoffman and Prescott had deemed the island safe enough to transfer the remnant of the COG to the mothballed naval base there. Tomorrow _Sovereign_ was going to make the first of several trips, loaded up with five thousand people and Michaelson-only-knows-how-many metric tons of supplies. It couldn't happen fast enough for Marcus. It certainly hadn't for the teenager with the destroyed face.

Marcus finally left the observation room when Hayman was able to save the kid's eye. He was walking toward the front of the med center, thinking about exactly which internal organ he would give for a cup of real coffee right about now, when he saw Baird hovering over a gurney in one of the recovery rooms. Baird was standing at the end of the bed looking as if Hammer-like beams might shoot out of his eyes at any moment.

Marcus came through the door. Sure enough, it was Baird's rival, Sharon Keller. "What happened to her?" He was a little concerned that Delta's pet weapons inventor might be out of commission. The robots and rockets had proved to be very useful in their skirmishes with the Grubs. Marcus didn't want to think about how many more Gears with smashed faces there might be if she hadn't shown up on their doorstep five weeks ago.

"Fired a Mark 1 Lancer," Baird hissed through his teeth. "Dislocated her collarbone."

"Why did she do that?"

"Because she ran out into the middle of this morning's firefight, that's why!" Baird swiveled his glare from the sleeping woman to Marcus.

"What the hell? Without armor? Without being a _Gear_?" Marcus thought of the no-face kid again.

"Exactly! Thank you! Bernie and Sam seem to think it was 'awesome'." Baird used finger quotes for the last word. "Especially since she had this!" Baird displayed the gun Bernie had returned to him. A little more calmly, he explained, "Sharon calls it a napalm pistol. That's what burned the Berserker and that one Boomer. It fires a highly flammable gel and then an incendiary round."

"Let me see that." Baird handed it over very reluctantly for Marcus to examine. It was quite big and bulky for a handgun and had a large revolver-like chamber that would hold six oversize rounds. "So it takes two rounds to make it work?"

"Yeah. The gel and then the tracer round."

"Hmm. I wonder if she could make mounted cannon for the APCs." Marcus handed back the pistol before Baird could get grabby.

"Probably. She could probably frigging solve cold fusion if she really put her mind to it."

"Jealous, Baird?" Marcus was very amused. Baird was so damned cocky about his intelligence, and it was nice having someone around who could put him in his place.

"Damn right I am! Ever since she arrived, her tech is all the Gears can talk about. It's 'Sharon this' and 'Sharon that' and 'Sharon's got this cool gadget that blah-de-blah-blahs'. I'm sick of it! I've been patching together half the tech we've got for fifteen years now, and she swoops in like Father Winter* with a big bag of toys for everyone!" Baird looked like he was going to throw something any moment now. Marcus just hoped he wouldn't toss a bedpan.

"Well, Baird, it seems like all she's got so far is one prototype for each of them. If we want to produce them on a mass scale, that's where you come in."

Baird visibly tried to calm himself. "That's true. She tends to lose interest once she's gotten something to work. See, we can both design and build things, but her main strength is in creativity, and mine is in execution. If you want something built, repaired or upgraded, you need me; if you want brand-new technology, you need her."

"So _that's_ why COG armor tech stopped making big advances ten years ago. Sharon disappeared."

"Yeah. We had to make do with the anti-grav, cloaking and magnetic tech she thought up before she went off the grid." He turned so Marcus could see the back of his armor. "She put this on me this morning. It makes the armor's magnetic deflection work better. I think it especially boosts the field where it covers the Gear's head. The bullets bounced off me so fast I thought they might ricochet into someone else."

Marcus jerked his head toward the operating room. "The kid in there probably could have used one this morning. He's only alive because the helmets are heavily reinforced over the brainpan. Not sure if it's a good thing he survived or not; barely has a face left."

"God." Baird looked a little sick. "Do you think she put it on me instead of him because I wasn't wearing a helmet?"

It wasn't like Baird to be concerned about people he didn't know. Weird. "No, Baird, I think she put it on you because she knows you."

"Oh." He looked at the woman lying unconscious in the gurney before him. "Huh." He shrugged. "Anyway, when she wakes up I'm going to tear her a new one."

"Don't."

"What? Why the hell not?" Baird's face turned that vivid red again.

"It seems like she's going to throw herself into battle anyway. The best you can do is convince her to wear light plate armor and make one of those for herself." Marcus circled a finger at the flat disc on Baird's back. He hesitated, and then decided to make the request anyway. "Have her make one for Anya too." Screw not playing favorites; he didn't want to see Anya get her head blown apart.

Baird wrinkled his face. "Anya? Why would she make one for Anya?"

Marcus managed not to sigh. "Anya's going to be frontline. We've got too few able-bodied Gears left, and far too many in support positions. There's a crippled lieutenant who wants to take over for her in the CIC."

"Frak. See, this is why I don't like having women on the frontline. Now you and Dom are going to be shitting a brick every time she goes out with Delta. I'm probably going to get my ass shot off because everybody will be covering her instead of me."

Marcus felt suddenly defensive. "Her mother was Helena Stroud, remember? Anya can do it."

Baird nodded toward Sharon. "Yeah, well, just keep her away from the Retro Lancers."

Marcus nodded. "Damn right I will."

**# # #**

**I made up "Father Winter" to be Sera's version of Santa/Father Christmas. The GOW universe is so similar to ours that what's different (the Locust, Imulsion, Sera's geography) is a much shorter list than what's the same (Dom is Latino, Marcus says things like "sweet" and "pronto", the Pesangas are basically Southeast Asians, the Gorasni and the UIR are Russians and the USSR, Sera has some of the same animals because there are Thrashball teams called the Sharks, the Cougars and the Eagles, etc., etc.).**


	36. E Day plus 14 years 36 weeks: 0530 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 36 WEEKS*

[Port Farrall, 0530 hours]

The rows between the blankets and pads that the nomads slept on were just wide enough for one person to walk. Dom was standing in one of these rows, chewing his thumbnail down to the quick and staring at Maria as she slept. Her hair was getting back its shine and her cheeks had begun to fill in. She looked better every day. And now he had to leave her.

He was supposed to go with Marcus, Anya and Sam to Vectes in one of the Ravens this morning. It didn't take off until 1030, but he was leaving the tent extra early on Sharon's advice. He heard her voice call softly over the slumbering bodies. "Dom."

He ignored her. "Dom," she repeated. He finally turned his head to look at her where she stood at the tent flap. "Come on out. When she wakes up and you're gone, she won't think to ask about you until later. But if she sees you leaving..."

"I know, I know. If she sees me leaving she'll be upset." It was 'out of sight, out of mind' with Maria. Sneaking away while she slept was the best thing for her emotional state. For Dom's, however...

Dom looked at Maria again and went back to chewing his thumbnail, something he hadn't done since Maria had first disappeared. His forehead hurt from being furrowed for so long and his feet felt like they were encased in concrete, rooting him to the spot. _'How can I leave her?'_ he thought_. 'What if something happens to her? What if she wanders off? What if there's another Locust raid? God, what if the ship sinks on its way to Vectes?'_

"Dom," Sharon said again. "I won't let anything happen to her. She's got three hundred and twenty-five people looking out for her, not to mention four badass robots. I promise to keep her safe. Every adult in this tent would lay down their life for her, just like they would for any of the children."

Dom breathed in shakily. "Okay," he said. "Right. Let's go." He kept to the narrow pathways, taking care not to step on anyone's hands, and looked back when he got to the flap. "Sleep tight, sweetheart," he said softly.

Sharon walked him to the dock where he would help with the loading for an hour or so until his appetite came back and he could eat breakfast. Right now it felt like he had the flu, and the thought of food was less than appetizing.

Many of the younger Gears were helping with loading supplies onto pallets that the cranes would shift over to _Sovereign_'s cargo holds.

Sharon surveyed the hard-working soldiers. "Baird told me about the testosterone boosters. Exactly how young are the boys when they start getting the injections?"

Dom cast down his eyes. "Ten. They start active service at fifteen."

"You're shitting me."

"Unfortunately, I'm not. Increasing testosterone production kick-starts puberty, and the younger they start the injections, the faster they develop." He gestured to the Gears loading crates. "A lot of these soldiers are much younger than they look." Dom's chest tightened up for a moment. "Anthony Carmine was seventeen when he got sniped. You know about Benjamin, who died in the Riftworm? He was fifteen." He pointed to a helmeted figure on _Sovereign_'s deck. "Clayton is only twenty*."

"Well, that would explain the libido."

Dom chuckled, grateful for the humor. "Yeah, it's like he's trying to repopulate the planet all by himself." He raised a fist in imitation of Prescott giving a speech. "For every Carmine that falls, a hundred shall rise!"

Everyone within earshot burst out laughing. Clayton's sex drive was becoming the stuff of legend.

Sharon clapped Dom on the shoulder, still giggling. "Well, I'm going to go borrow a welding torch from a certain surly blond. Will you be okay here?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm feeling better now." He managed to smile for her.

"Good. Maria and I will see you in five days, when _Sovereign_ gets to Vectes."

"Looking forward to it." That was an understatement. He still had to suppress the urge to sprint back to Maria as soon as Sharon was out of sight. Dom turned on his tracker so that as he worked he could watch the blinking green dot that represented his wife. He kept it on right up until the chopper carried them out of range.

**# # #**

*** I am constantly updating timelines and facts in these chapters, so when you subscribe for alerts, any "such-and-such chapter has been updated" messages are only minor edits for perfectionism. ****I'm going to set the move to Vectes at 4 weeks before 15 A.E. begins, and henceforth Sera will have 40 weeks (10 months) per year. I also made Clayton a little younger.  
**


	37. 21 weeks before E day: 0740 Dom

21 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Ephyra, 0740 hours]

Dom and Marcus's battalion was called "The Unvanquished" for a reason; they had never, ever failed a mission, not even the siege of Anvil Gate. And Dom was no ordinary soldier: he was one of the best commandos to ever serve the COG. At Aspho Fields he had stolen the Hammer of Dawn prototype, shot down an attack helicopter, saved half a dozen people from drowning and piloted an inflatable boat into the cargo bay of a low-flying chopper. He had won the highest honors the COG could bestow on a soldier, and was astoundingly good at his job.

Maria was still a nervous wreck. She had never gotten used to seeing her husband go off to war. The very idea of people shooting at her Dom, shooting to _kill_, made her chin start to quiver. As he knelt to zip up his "go" bag she put a hand on his head and tried not to imagine a sniper's bullet passing straight through it. She was unsuccessful.

Dom smiled up at her, that adorably sexy smile that always made her want to tear his clothes off. Maria was knotted up with pride and fear and desire, so many emotions fighting for dominance that she was very close to breaking down in tears just to relieve some of the pressure.

But she put on a brave face for Dom, and let only the pride show through. She stroked his black hair, those tiny, tightly coiled curls that were as rough as his narrow beard. When they had met at eleven years old, his hair was the second thing she had noticed, right after that eye-catching grin that had made her feel like the most important person in the world.

Dom stood and kissed her full on the mouth for several seconds. "I gotta go, baby. Marcus will be waiting outside in his car." Maria knew that. Marcus was so punctual you could set your watch by him.

Dom took Maria by the hand and put his duffel down in the hallway. He led her into Benedicto's room first. He looked down at the sleeping boy for a moment, then bent to kiss the four-year-old's forehead. Bennie stirred but didn't wake.

Sylvia's room was next. Like most three-year-olds, she was awake when she should have been asleep. Sylvia stood up in her crib and waved her favorite teddy bear, then threw it in the middle of the floor. She pouted at her father. "Pick up, Daddy," she commanded. Making Dom fetch her toys was one of Sylvia's favorite pastimes. Another father might have gotten annoyed after ten or twenty throws, but Dom was completely wrapped around his little girl's finger. Chuckling and still holding Maria's hand, he picked up the toy and tossed it gently at the little girl's face. Sylvia squealed in delight when the teddy bounced off her head and landed in the crib. "Shhh, Sylvie," Dom said, still laughing softly. "Your brother's sleeping." He went to the crib and kissed Sylvia on the forehead. "I love you, baby girl." Dom and Maria backed out, and Sylvia went back to quietly playing with her toys.

Dom picked up his duffel again and led Maria downstairs. "Where did we get such good kids?" Dom asked rhetorically. "I swear we get dirty looks from people with difficult children."

Maria let Dom open the door and take her outside. "They must get it from their father. They sure don't get it from me." Dom laughed heartily, probably remembering Maria's persistence in climbing the tree in the Flores's yard, no matter how many times her parents told her not to.

"Yeah, you were a handful." He kissed her again as they stopped at the gate. "You still are." He flicked the tip of her nose. Maria said, "Ow!" and kicked his shin lightly.

"Marcus, help!" Dom called to his friend. "My wife is beating me again!"

Marcus stepped out of the car to greet Maria, always the gentleman. Marcus usually said things in a serious tone, but it was especially fitting this morning as he delivered a deadpan "Don't make me report you to the authorities, Mrs. Santiago."

Maria stood on her tiptoes and gave Marcus a kiss on the cheek, which for some reason he tolerated better than hugging. "You look after Dom, now. Don't bring him back all religious."

Marcus nodded. "I'll make sure he's not hole-y when I return him." It was Dom's joke, but Marcus apparently thought it was funny enough to repeat.

"You do that."

Dom finished situating his duffel in the back seat and came back to hug her one more time. "I'll see you when the war's over, honey."

Maria held on to his arms for a moment. "You're really that sure the UIR will cave once we use the Hammer?"

"I am. It'll get the job done, all right, with no civilian casualties."

Marcus was looking at the ground, obviously uncomfortable with his father's involvement in creating a weapon of mass destruction. Maria briefly laid a hand on his arm.

"Marcus, when the Hammer ends the war, will you thank your father for me?"

Marcus met her eyes again. She knew him well enough to interpret the faint expression on his face as surprise. "Sure, Maria. I'll make sure I pass that on."

"Thanks, sweetie." Marcus also tolerated her calling him pet names, and she got away with it as often as possible.

Dom put his hand on the small of her back and kissed her once more. She held his face in both hands, wishing that were enough to keep him there. He pulled away and said, "I'll be back before you know it. I love you, Maria."

"I love you too, Dominic."

Maria watched him get into the car and roll down the window. She knew Marcus was the one driving, but from this angle it looked like Dom was the only one in the car. Figuratively speaking, it was true: to her, he was the only man in the world right now. Maria waved as they drove off, Dom hanging his head out the window and waving. He blew her a kiss just before they turned the corner, and then he was gone.

Maria bit the inside of her lip to hold back the tears, because if she started, she wouldn't be able to stop for hours, and that would alarm the children even more than their daddy being deployed for a couple of months. She stayed carefully behind the invisible line at the gate that she had drawn for herself. The first time Dom had been deployed after their marriage, Maria had said goodbye to them on the sidewalk, which was a mistake. She had ended up running down the street after Marcus's car, screaming Dom's name and crying. They'd had to turn the car around, and it had taken fifteen minutes to calm her down enough to go inside the house so she wouldn't have to watch them leave.

Even today, four years later, she still wanted to chase after the car. She stood there at the gate with her eyes closed, biting back the beginning 'D' in Dom's name over and over for a good five minutes. She did the breathing exercises that another military wife had taught her, and her heartbeat eventually returned to normal.

Then she went back inside to make breakfast and spoil the bejeezus out of their children for the next four months.

**# # #**

**If you're a regular reader, pretty please leave a comment that says which couple or chapter has been your favorite so far.**

**It helps me a lot when I am shaping the paths of the love stories. Thanks!  
**


	38. E Day plus 14 years 36 weeks: 0600 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 36 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 0600 hours]

Delta is on the second torture barge now and they've taken out all the Drones and Grinders guarding it. Marcus leads them downstairs and pulls the lever. The doors hiss open with an exhalation of air that smells like rotten eggs. _'Sulfur-powered,'_ Baird thinks. _'That's too advanced for Grubs.'_

Delta spreads out and looks inside the rotten-smelling cells. It isn't just the sulfur making it reek in here. There's a lot of dried blood and bits of flesh clinging to the walls and floors, even the ceilings in some cases.

Baird finds her first. Sharon is lying face-down with her head turned toward the door. The looped chains hanging from the ceiling sway gently with the motion of the barge. She has no shirt. Her back has been flayed open in horizontal slits from her neck to her waist. Some of the strips of intact skin and muscle have brass rings through them_. 'Probably for hanging from the hooks on those chains,'_ Baird realizes.

She is very obviously dead.

"Marcus!" Dom shouts. "We got more Locust on the way!"

Marcus tosses a Gnasher into Baird's empty hands. "Baird, let's go." He turns to the others. "Cole, Tai, cover that door. Carmine, Dom, guard the rear."

Baird doesn't even have to think about it. He snugs the barrel of the shotgun tight underneath his jaw. Marcus has heard the round being jacked into the chamber, so he turns around. "Baird!" It is the most emotion Baird has ever heard in the sergeant's voice. Marcus screams _"NO!"_ just before a blast of red noise shatters everything.

This time Baird came fully awake having fallen out of bed onto his hands and knees. His stomach poured his 2.5-times-the-normal-rations onto the floor between his hands. He spat a couple of times to get the rest of them out of his mouth.

Baird felt a hand thumping him between his shoulder blades. Holt was the only one in their shared quarters this morning. "It's all right, dude, just get it all out. It's worse if you fight the heaves." Baird was too dizzy to swear at him. "Innerman wakes up spewing sometimes too, you've just never been here for it." Holt pointed to a bucket under the other soldier's bed. "We even keep cleaning supplies in here for him. Feel free."

Holt left immediately, thinking correctly that Baird would rather be alone. Baird got up shakily and pulled out the bucket with the spray bottle and sponge, which he had used several times without them knowing. Usually he could hold it in until he made it outside.

'_I gotta do something about this. I'm wasting calories by throwing up my dinner every other night.' _Five weeks of gory dreams had torn up his esophagus so badly that he was starting to sound like Marcus. Most people assumed he had laryngitis from the cold air, but Cole was getting suspicious because Baird was also starting to lose muscle mass.

After Baird had cleaned up and dressed, he wobbled down the street to the garage. He knew Sharon was in there before he opened the door.

This time he didn't covertly slip away. He stepped inside and slammed the door loudly. Sharon jerked her head toward the noise, looking surprised to see him.

"Sharon," he rasped. "The COG is starting the move to Vectes today."

"Yeah?" she replied, looking at him out of the corner of her eye as if that would let her see his motives more clearly.

"Having two separate shops is a pain. It seems like you've always got the one tool that I need."

"So?" The way she said it didn't sound rude. "I always bring them back."

His voice loosened up a little. "So when we get there, I'll just find one big shop and we can split it. That way my tools won't 'wander off' when I need them."

Sharon smirked. "Should we make a line down the middle with duct tape?"

He shrugged slowly, too worn out to come up with a sarcastic reply. "If you want. I'd just like to have all my stuff under one roof, okay?"

She dropped the smirk and nodded politely. "Sure, we can do that." She lifted the small welding torch she'd been making off with. "But for today I need this. I have to make a steel container to transport some of my new gadgets."

"Fine. Just make sure you still have it when we get to Vectes."

"Will do, Corporal." She gave him a chipper salute, patted JACK on the head and left smiling.

Baird sat down heavily in a ragged armchair he'd appropriated and tried to rest. _'Maybe if I keep an eye on her it'll help. Sure can't get much worse.'_


	39. 24 weeks before E Day: 2530 Baird

24 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Halvo Bay, 2530 hours]

The physical skills that Damon had learned from all those exhausting martial arts classes his parents made him take had really paid off in the last few years, at least as far as climbing the stone walls to Sharon's bedroom. He hoisted himself through the open window and dropped soundlessly onto the carpet.

Since they'd become intimate on Damon's sixteenth birthday, they rarely spent the whole night apart. One would sneak over to the other's house with DENIS's assistance and bypass the security. Sharon's house was made with rough-hewn stone blocks that made for easy climbing, and Damon's had a lattice outside that he had covertly reinforced to hold more weight. If they wanted to make love, they slept at Damon's house because his parents had their bedroom in a completely different wing of the mansion and wouldn't hear them. If they just wanted to be in the same bed, they slept at Sharon's because her bed was softer. Neither set of parents had ever thought to look in on their children because with James's help, they had all thought Sharon was dating him instead of Damon.

'_And now that thieving son of a bitch is trying to have Sharon for real,' _Damon seethed_. 'I'd tear that coward apart if I could get anywhere near him.'_

His anger immediately fled when he came closer to Sharon's bed. Her wavy brown hair was fanned out across her pillow, but her head was on the one he used. As the Markhams continued to hemorrhage money, Sharon had been inching onto his side of the bed a little more every night. They guessed it was probably because it smelled like him.

"DENIS," he whispered to the polygonal robot, "go guard the door. And wake me at five thirty." DENIS used his upgraded hover field generator to bob over to the bedroom door and slap his vibration and sonar sensors onto the wood. At either house DENIS always stood guard at the door, using his advanced infiltration tech to find out if anyone was coming.

Damon kicked off his shoes and stripped down to his boxers. As he lifted the covers to slide into bed, Sharon woke up a little.

"Damon," she slurred. "I thought you weren't coming."

"My folks left for their party a lot later than I thought they would," he whispered. He got in and tucked the covers close around them as she pressed herself to his front, her arms crossed over her chest as if she needed the warmth. As it turned out, she did. "Sharon, you're ice cold," he commented, letting her wedge her chilly feet between his calves to warm them up. Damon's body always ran hotter than hers, so she usually kept the heat down in her bedroom when he was coming over.

"We stopped using the heating system today," Sharon explained. Now that Damon was expecting it, it _was_ a lot colder in here than usual. It was still summertime, but a big stone house cooled off at night no matter what temperature it had been during the day.

"Crap," Damon said. He kissed her icy forehead. "Listen, I want you to sleep at my house from now on. You shouldn't have to be cold at night." He pulled the blankets up to Sharon's chin and slipped his arms around her. She nodded and pressed her wintry cheek against his bare chest. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he could see that the expensive painting that had hung over her dresser was gone. _'They must have sold it. Dammit, Sharon loved that painting.'_ Not for the first time, Damon wished he had the money to buy back some of the things the Markhams had had to liquidate. But no, his parents insisted he had to serve in the army before he got any significant amount of money. They barely gave him an allowance as it was. And there was no way in hell that the Bairds would loan the Markhams money.

Now thanks to the traitorous James, all three families knew that Damon and Sharon had been dating for a long time. But James didn't know about DENIS's ability to bypass any security system, so neither the Markhams' new security system nor the Bairds' new razor wire was going to do any good. Of course Sharon and Damon pretended to be very upset about this so that no one caught on.

'_God willing, they'll never find out,'_ Damon thought as he tightened his arms around her. _'Or by the time they do, we'll have come up with a way out of this sand trap. We'll figure out how to get the anti-grav patent pushed through faster, or some bankruptcy loophole, and we'll give James the finger as we ride off into the frigging sunset.'_ Sharon had warmed up quite a bit and fallen back asleep. He wound a strand of her hair around his fingers over and over again._ 'There's no way I'm letting that back-stabbing little shit steal my fiancée.'_


	40. E Day plus 14 years 37 weeks: 1145 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base, 1145 hours]

Baird's forehead slipped off the hand that was bracing it on the doorframe of the Packhorse, and the sudden downward snap of his head woke him from the half-slumber that he'd been in. Sitting in the truck while he waited for _Sovereign _to come over the horizon was looking like a bad idea, so he got out and leaned against the Packhorse's front fender. Caffeine wasn't enough to keep him awake anymore. He was way past "tired" and into that state which is very similar to being drunk. His head was too heavy for his neck, his vision was blurry, his knees felt like they might give out, sounds were muffled like he was wearing ear protectors and every flat surface seemed to be inviting him to come take a nap. Just a little nap. Five minutes. He could stretch out in the front seat of the Packhorse, or even just cross his arms right here on the hood of the truck and rest his head on them. He thought about that for a second and realized he was already doing it.

His heavy eyelids fell shut in an instant. Nearly fifteen years of service as a Gear meant that Baird could sleep anywhere, even in full armor; sitting up, lying face-down on a rock, standing, huddled up on the floor of an APC with his head on an ammo crate, strapped into a Raven, draped over a crumbling block of concrete or even bouncing around in the back of a Packhorse that was determined to hit every available pothole. Every Gear could; it was an acquired skill. A greenhorn who couldn't sleep without absolute silence was transformed within a year into a veteran soldier who wouldn't be woken by the sound of a Raven hovering right over his head. That made having someone stand the night watch even more important. Sleeping Gears often had to be awoken by a hard shake of the shoulder, like Cole was doing to Baird now.

"Baird. Baird, wake up, man, the ship's here," he was saying. When Baird raised his head and forced his eyes open, the view of the ocean had been replaced with an immense steel wall. No, not a wall, the hull of _Sovereign_, which had docked and was even disembarking people and equipment already. Baird had slept through the ship's entire noisy approach and berthing process.

"Thanks, Cole," he said, quietly grateful that Cole had woken him before he had a repeat of the terrifying vision that had assaulted him the second night on Vectes. It had been one of those nightmares that plays on a loop, reaching the sickening conclusion and then starting all over again. It involved being inside a Riftworm with Sharon playing the part of Benjamin Carmine in an endless series of encore performances. The next morning he decided he'd rather stay awake until _Sovereign_ arrived than watch her half-eaten corpse be liquefied by green acid one more time.

"You don't look so good, Baird, you been drinking?" Cole asked. He had good reason to be worried. About ten years ago Baird had gone on a week-long bender that ended with four other Gears in the hospital and Baird thrown in the stockade until he dried out. He was busted back down to Private —again— and would have been dishonorably discharged if the COG hadn't been so short on soldiers. Cole was beginning to suspect that might have been when Sharon was put on the "Missing, Presumed Dead" list.

"No, I haven't been drinking," Baird snapped. "I just haven't slept in three days."

"Oooh," Cole said knowingly.

"Don't 'oooh' me, Cole. For the first time since E-Day we've got no Grubs to fight, but I keep expecting them to pop up out of the ground anyway. I'm more on edge now than I was during the war."

"Sure."

"Shut up."

Cole saw Sharon coming down the gangplank and he couldn't resist. "Look, there she is." He pointed. Baird's head snapped around to follow his finger. Cole smirked to himself but didn't say anything. Baird scowled mightily and drummed his fingers impatiently on the hood of the Packhorse while Sharon spoke with the _Sovereign_'s loadmaster. He pointed in the general direction of Baird's Packhorse and Sharon shielded her eyes against the sun. She seemed to freeze for a moment, then made up her mind about something and threaded her way through the crowd to reach them.

"Where's my stuff?" Baird demanded.

"Hello to you too, Corporal." She turned pointedly toward Cole. "Good afternoon, Private Cole. Care to help a lady with her high explosives?"

"Love to, ma'am. Baird is going to help too, isn't he?" Cole squinted at him.

"Fine. Let's just get this show on the road." Baird got in the Packhorse and slammed the door unnecessarily hard. Sharon and Cole hopped in the bed of the truck and rode it down to where Baird backed up to Sharon's pile of crates. Cole and Baird began hefting the heavy steel crates first. When it got down to the medium-size wooden ones, Sharon tried to help, but every time she picked up a box Baird snatched it out of her hands and flung it into the bed of the truck. After the fourth or fifth time Sharon began to get annoyed.

She put her hands on her hips. "What the hell's the matter with you?"

"You're too slow," Baird responded. "I want to get this over with."

"He hasn't been sleeping," Cole offered.

"Really, Cole?" Baird asked testily. "You want to tell her what I had for breakfast, too? How about how much toothpaste I used this morning?"

"He's always like this when he's overtired," Cole said.

"Oh, trust me, I know. One time in middle school he—"

"Would you two zip it and just _load the goddamned truck_?"

"See?" said Sharon. "Snippy. I'm guessing two or three days without sleep."

"Three," said Cole.

Baird cussed steadily under his breath as he heaved crate after crate into the bed of the truck. Sharon and Cole made a point out of loading the smallest boxes first, grinning silently at each other. "It's better if you let him wear himself out," she whispered to him.

"I usually do," Cole whispered back.

Baird slammed the tailgate shut as soon as the last box was loaded, nearly catching their fingers. "Get in the frigging truck, Sharon. And you—" he pointed at Cole "—can stay right here and help the others. I can handle the unloading, and I don't need you two sniggering behind my back while I'm working."

Cole held up his hands in a peace-making gesture. "No problem, Baird. You go do your thing." He waved at Sharon with a big grin. "I'll catch up with you later, little lady."

"Bye, Cole!"

Baird drove through the base so fast he kicked up a rooster tail of dust behind them. There was much swearing and waving of middle fingers as civilians and Gears alike had to jump out of the Packhorse's way.

"Are you sure you don't want me to drive?" Sharon asked, gripping the dashboard for balance.

"I'm sure," Baird gritted through his teeth. He skidded to a stop parallel to the front of a large metal building and whipped the truck in backwards. He killed the engine as soon as the Packhorse was all the way inside and left it parked diagonally. Baird smacked the button for the automatic garage door, marched over to an old couch in the corner and threw himself down on his side.

He heard Sharon get out of the truck. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm taking a frigging nap is what I'm doing. So if you're gonna unload stuff, do it quietly."

"All right," Sharon said in her I-don't-care-enough-to-argue voice.

Baird huffed once in disgust and fell straight to sleep.

Sharon shut her door quietly and stood there in the dim quiet of the machine shop, listening to the Packhorse's engine ticking as it cooled down and staring at Damon's plaid-shirted back. At least she _thought _it was Damon. Intellectually she knew it was him lying on that couch, but her instincts told her otherwise. It was like putting your hand on a running machine and just _feeling_ that there is some part about to fail, even though every diagnostic tool you have says it is working perfectly.

Almost everything about him was just a little bit off, like the real Damon had been erased and redrawn from memory. That was likely the issue; her perception of him. She had unconsciously fallen into a habit of thinking of the old Damon as the "real" one, and this new Damon as an impostor who was wearing his face.

She went forward and stood over him so she could see that face. All of his features were definitely larger than before, although she didn't know if that was from the T-boosters or just maturity. His mouth and jaw were a little bit wider, the faint cleft in his chin a little bit deeper, his brow jutted out a little bit farther and his nose was a little bit longer with a miniscule bump that said it had been broken at least once. But his eyebrows were the same shape, his ears still stuck out just a tiny bit and his lashes had stayed that reddish-blond color. Like most natural blonds, his hair had gradually darkened over the years, especially at the nape of his neck. But that was to be expected, as were the crow's feet and the thicker, darker stubble on his face.

The most striking differences, however, were not on his head. He had to be at least four inches taller, maybe five, and he weighed almost double. Her Damon, the "real" one, had been about 5'9" and slender, all smooth muscle and sleek limbs, the body type that could run for hours and never get tired. This new Damon looked like he could bench press the truck he had driven in here, but probably couldn't finish a 10-kilometer race because of all the muscle weighing him down. She couldn't get over just how _big_ he was; his bicep was larger around than her waist and his hands were nearly twice their previous size. Sharon felt another pang of loss. Her Damon's hands had been graceful and sleek, not just when they were flying over the paper sketching a new machine, but also when they were running up and down her bare legs. The new ones were so broad across they were practically square and looked as rough as sandpaper.

He was the same person, but so different; right in front of her, but as far away as ever.

Sharon felt like she was mourning him all over again.


	41. E Day plus 14 years 37 weeks: 1200 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base, 1200]

Dom had been pacing up and down the docks for about two hours, waiting for _Sovereign _to arrive. He would have been chewing his nails except all ten of them were gone. Marcus had threatened to tape oven mitts on Dom's hands if he didn't stop chewing, so Dom had wrapped each finger with a strip of medical tape. Even though he couldn't reach what was left of his nails, he was still running the protected tips of his fingers back and forth across his lips.

His mind was churning with _what-ifs,_ ranging from the reasonable _('What if she doesn't remember me?')_ to the preposterous _('What if she fell overboard and got eaten by a leviathan and they just don't want to tell me so they haven't radioed ahead and instead they're going to wait until everyone has disembarked and then they'll have a bunch of people tackle me and shoot me up with sedatives while they try to explain that I've lost her again, oh God oh God oh God...)_. The only thing holding Dom back from a full-blown panic attack was that Marcus was there, leaning against a piling and making fishing lures for Cole.

Marcus had been Dom's anchor throughout the initial frenzy of Maria's disappearance. He'd kept Dom from going AWOL to look for her, coached him through several episodes of hyperventilation, and took on the duty of showing Maria's picture to every new group of soldiers they met. For fourteen years, whenever their hours off coincided, Marcus went with Dom to ask nearby Stranded about her. Dom had expected Marcus to lose interest after a few years of searching, but he should have known better. If Marcus made a friend, then they were friends for life; if Marcus started something important, he'd finish it no matter what the cost. And Marcus had been just as much a brother to Maria as Carlos. He may have given up hope somewhere along the way, but he never stopped looking.

As Dom came to the end of his current circuit and turned around to start another, he saw Marcus straighten up and put a hand to his ear. Being a squad leader, Marcus had access to radio frequencies that Dom didn't. He'd been listening to the ship-to-shore chatter for as long as they'd been down here. Dom sprinted down the pier, his significant weight and heavy combat boots making the wooden slats vibrate for yards in front and behind. Everyone who felt the shaking looked up, but no one seemed irritated when they saw him racing toward Marcus.

Dom reached Marcus so out of breath that he couldn't get the question out, but Marcus answered it anyway.

"ETA forty minutes to docking." Marcus looked as close to smiling as he ever got. Dom wheezed out his thanks, standing with his hands braced on his knees. Marcus thumped him on the back twice, the Fenix version of an arm around the shoulders. "Michaelson checked on her in person. Maria's just fine."

Something in Dom's chest loosened up. If even the commanding officer of the COG navy was looking out for Maria, she'd probably survive until she got to shore. He sagged against the piling Marcus had vacated, more exhausted by the worrying than he'd realized.

Now that he knew the ship hadn't sunk on its way to Vectes, he was much more aware of things around him. The deep berth that _Sovereign_ would occupy was surrounded by Parry's combat engineers and navy seamen preparing to offload cargo. Many military personnel had arrived in faster, smaller vessels one or two days ahead of _Sovereign_. The enormous helicopter carrier was at the head of a small fleet bringing the COG civilians to Vectes. On the shoreline behind the docks were even more soldiers waiting for their families to disembark. Hoffman hadn't even tried to keep anyone who had family onboard the ship away from the docking of _Sovereign_. He had told Delta that a joyous homecoming celebration was exactly what the COG needed to start adapting to Vectes.

Hoffman was there with Bernie and Mac the deerhound. Anya came and took position next to Marcus. Sam and Jace weren't in attendance but Dom spotted Baird draped over the hood of a Packhorse and Cole standing next to him. Carmine was chatting up a few of the female sappers.

A murmur ran through the waiting crowd. Fingers pointed and necks craned for a better look. If Dom squinted he could just make out the radar mast of _Sovereign_. His heart started beating double-time. He shared a huge grin with Anya and said to her and Marcus, "I think she's going to make it!"

Anya let out that tinkling-bell laugh. "Yeah, Dom, she's going to make it."

The thrilling agony he felt watching the slow approach of the giant warship reminded Dom of waiting while Maria gave birth to Bennie. _Sovereign_ was coming far, far too slowly, but it was bringing his wife home to him. Hoffman had assigned them a small apartment in family housing (_family_ housing: Dom's new favorite words) close to the base hospital in case Maria ever required emergency care. Dom would have to find some way to repay Hoffman for that.

By the time _Sovereign_ actually dropped anchor, Dom was bouncing on the balls of his feet with his hands pressed together in front of his mouth as if in prayer. In his peripheral vision he saw more than a few people smiling and pointing him out to others, but he didn't care to find out why. She was here. She was _here_. They'd been separated by a vast distance and the worst had not come to pass.

Dom stormed up the gangplank as soon as it was stable. Later he would realize why everyone let him go first. The crowd of passengers parted before him like a curtain and he didn't even have to shove anyone out of the way. He heard Sharon's voice over the murmur of the civilians.

"Dom! Over here!" She was short, so she held up her waving hand and jumped in place a couple of times so he could see her over the people's heads. Again the crowd parted for him, and he saw her. _Her_. Maria. Safe and alive.

"Maria!" he shouted in a quavering voice. He ran forward and scooped her up in his arms, kissing her cheek again and again. Her hands came up and rested on his back. He buried his face in her hair, and that was when he finally heard all the cheering and clapping. Dom looked over Maria's shoulder at Sharon and mouthed, "What's going on?"

Sharon had to speak loudly to be heard over the applauding civilians. "You and Maria have sort of become celebrities. Everybody in the COG knows your story by now. On the way here I even heard a few families telling it to their kids at bedtime. With a lot of embellishments of course, and I think the Grubs are represented by trolls, but you get the idea."

Dom set Maria back on her feet but didn't let go. "Uh, thanks everybody," he said to the crowd. There was a swell in the applause and a lot of overlapping congratulations before the passengers gradually dispersed to carry on with the unloading process. Dom turned back to Sharon. "I was definitely not expecting that."

Sharon grinned. "You should have. Everyone likes a tragic love story with a happy ending." She tapped Maria on the shoulder. "Mary? Mary, do you remember who this is?" Sharon pointed at Dom. Maria followed the finger and focused on Dom's face.

"I remember. He's an old friend. My old friend Don."

Dom's eyes went as wide as Sharon's. "What—what did you say, Maria?"

"My old friend Don." Maria frowned. "You are Don, aren't you?"

Dom got a little bit of dust in his eye. "Yes I am." He crushed her to his chest and kissed her hair. "Close enough, baby. Close enough."

Maria tightened her arms around his ribs and made her happy, humming noise. "You smell like the earth, Don." She nuzzled his shirt like she could fall asleep right there in his arms.

Sharon looked like she had some dust in her eye too.


	42. EDay plus 14 years 37 weeks: 1300 Marcus

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Port Farrall, 1300 hours]

Marcus had long since escorted Dom and Maria to their new housing, Hoffman was busy directing the distribution of cargo to different military services, and the rest of Delta had either dispersed or torn off in a Packhorse like a bat out of hell. Anya worked her way through the crowd still on board _Sovereign_ and found Quentin Michaelson.

She stood at his elbow politely until he was done talking with his first mate. Before she even opened her mouth, Michaelson said, "This way, Lieutenant." He led her around the traffic control tower, down a set of steps and through a passage to a windowless door. Anya looked away while he punched in the long security code. Michaelson spun the wheel on the hatch and let Anya go into the secure vault first before shutting it behind them.

The vault wasn't very big, barely more than a steel closet with lots of safety-deposit boxes. Most of them were filled with code books that the navy used for encrypted communications. Anya and Michaelson produced their keys. They put them in the side-by-side locks on one of the boxes and turned them simultaneously. Anya opened the little door and withdrew the steel drawer. Michaelson moved to leave, but stopped short of opening the hatch to go out.

"Anya, if I may ask..." She knew he would be curious about what was so important that she wanted it locked away during the voyage instead of packed in a crate with the rest of her possessions. She didn't blame him for being curious, and he had done her a big favor by letting her use the vault, after all.

She opened the metal lid and withdrew a watertight, shock-proof lockbox. Anya set it on the table in the middle of the room and stroked the lid.

"It's my mother's Embry Star."

"Ah." Michaelson must understand what her mother's medal meant to her. Anya had accepted it on Helena's behalf after she died at Aspho Fields. Marcus had buried his with Carlos. Dom had sold his to pay for an attempt to break Marcus out of the Slab. Anya had the option to donate hers to a war museum, but she couldn't bear to part with it. Helena had been so focused on her career that she didn't have much in the way of possessions that she could bequeath to Anya. This medal, some of her clothes and books and a lot of photographs were everything Anya had of her mother's.

"Thank you, sir, I appreciate this."

"Anything for Helena's little girl," Michaelson said fondly. He saw her back to the passenger gangplank like a true officer and gentleman. Anya saluted him goodbye even though she was army, not navy. Michaelson returned the salute with a smile and went back to his duties.

Anya held her clipboard in front of the box so that it wouldn't be obvious that she was hugging it to her chest. She carried it like that all the way to her new quarters. Anya never unpacked her things in a new place without the box present. It just wouldn't feel right.

She locked the door and sat down on the bed with it. She dialed in the combination and opened the lockbox. Inside was a large wooden music box Helena had given her during some forgotten celebration when she was little. Anya lifted it out and raised the carved lid. The music mechanism didn't work anymore, but that wasn't important.

She hadn't lied to Michaelson: Helena's Embry Star _was_ in the box. But it wasn't the only treasure lying on the red velvet lining. Anya laid the four items side by side.

Next to her mother's medal she put a pair of gold cufflinks. Helena's will said they had once belonged to Anya's unnamed father. Anya trusted her mother's decision not to reveal her father's name. If Major Helena Stroud said he hadn't earned the right to be in her daughter's life, then he damn well hadn't. But Anya was strangely grateful for the memento anyway. Her mother had been very wise when it came to people.

The third and fourth items were just as precious to Anya as her parents' things. One was a laminated card, the other an expensive silk garment.

The ink on the card had started to smear from years of handling by the time she had it laminated. It said: _The Blue Room, 1780 SW Nassar Ave, the 16th at 1800?_

It must have been the power of suggestion that made Anya decide to wear the blue silk dress to the restaurant that night. Today she ran her fingers gently over the smooth fabric, careful to use a light touch so her rough hands wouldn't snag the delicate weave.

Anya opened the music box whenever she needed comfort. When Anya felt she was lacking in skill or courage, she held the Embry Star and remembered her mother's praise. When she was pining for the world before E-Day, she touched her father's cufflinks and remembered that era had also been full of disappointment and war. When Marcus did something to upset her —more often it was something he _didn't_ do that upset her— she held the card and touched the dress. If the rejection or disappointment cut particularly deep, she indulged her sentimental streak and wore the dress for a while, remembering their cherished date.

'_Anya,'_ she heard his voice say._ 'The lady's name is Anya.'_

Marcus hadn't been too cold or distant lately, although he hadn't come to her new quarters yet. He was still vigilant, still constantly searching the surroundings for danger with a soldier's eye. But some of the tension in his shoulders was gone and the lines on his face didn't seem so deep. In the week they had been on Vectes, he had met her eyes more often and held her gaze for just a fraction longer than usual.

In her head, Marcus spoke. _'My girlfriend, Anya.'_

She held the dress to her chest for a moment, closing her eyes and trying to remember the sights and sounds and smells of the elegant restaurant. The real silver flatware. The white satin tablecloth. The indescribable lobster frittata. The best wine she had ever tasted, served in an etched crystal glass. The pat of butter, shaped like a rose and presented on a bed of crushed ice to keep it cool.

Marcus.

He too had been wearing blue clothing. His suit was navy blue and very expensive. His shirt was a light blue button-down with silver cufflinks. No tie, of course. Marcus didn't look right in a tie, like a chained tiger. Obviously he had some pull at this restaurant to get away with flaunting the dress code. His eyes normally seemed pale gray, but the blue clothing showed their true steely-cobalt color.

'_My girlfriend, Anya.'_

They had spoken very little, eating and drinking in an almost unbroken silence. But Marcus had watched her closely the whole time. Anya would have felt unsettled by the intensity of his stare, but it was rare for him to hold her gaze for any length of time, other than in bed. He hardly ever spoke during sex, but if she closed her eyes for more than a moment, he would stop until she opened them again. Once she had asked him why. His reply had been:"Because I want to see you."

That night he never broke eye contact first. The association with love-making made her blush at the beginning, but then it seemed like they were having a silent, wordless conversation. After seeing each other for two years, Anya knew very well that Marcus was a man of few words, so few it seemed like he had a limited lifetime supply. And she couldn't remember him ever speaking about feelings unless he was talking about Dom or Maria in the third person.

During their date Marcus's face was particularly impassive, but his eyes were alive with suppressed words. He barely said anything, and when he did it was dining-related, such as "Should I signal Steven for more wine?" or "Would you like to try some of my steak?" But there had been so much raw emotion in his eyes that by the end of their meal Anya felt like she had had a long conversation with him.

Marcus was an incredibly gentle lover for such a big man, but that evening at her apartment he had been a little more aggressive than usual, and his gaze had been particularly intense. Anya had felt so exposed by his unwavering stare that she felt compelled to cover her face near the end, irrationally afraid that he could see into her soul, and fearful of what he might uncover there. Marcus had pulled her hand away and pinned it over her head, refusing to let her hide. Anya had never experienced such a powerful climax in her life, before or since. Marcus had buried his face in her neck and his own shuddering release seemed to go on and on. Afterward he had stayed in her bed longer than he ever had before. He even kissed her goodbye when he left.

Three weeks later the Locust armies burst up onto the surface of Sera, and Anya's chances for any more elegant dates with Marcus literally went up in smoke. The Blue Room was rubble and ash, and even if there had been anywhere to go, there was no more personal leave for anyone. Their relationship went back to being a dirty little secret, and Marcus had never looked at her that way again.

But Anya had the dress, and the card, and the memory that she kept alive whenever it started to fade. Whenever she grieved about the dates they had never had, she took out her father's cufflinks and remembered that she and Marcus might not still be together if the war hadn't happened. His ironclad reserve might have frustrated her too much, or he might have found her requests for affection too demanding, and they could have split up. But the war meant they either saw or heard each other every day, and he was always nearby. Anya was one of the few who silently dreaded the move to this idyllic place, where Marcus might feel free enough to leave her.

The COG could settle here permanently. They could build houses and schools and have families here. Anya was barren and no longer youthful, and if Marcus wanted out this was the perfect place for him. No more danger, no more hunger, no more desperate scrabble to survive. He wouldn't feel compelled to cling to her anymore as a symbol of his old life. And there were plenty of women who did more than just admire Marcus Fenix.

Anya closed her eyes against those doubts and summoned up his words again. _'My girlfriend, Anya.'_ Marcus was not the kind to say such a thing lightly. No matter that seventeen years had passed: if Marcus didn't want her anymore there would have been some sign. But he still came to her bed; he still gave a blank, unfriendly stare to any woman who approached him flirtatiously; and he had never been cruel to her. He was cold and indifferent at his worst, and even that ice thawed eventually, after the danger of emotionality had passed.

Marcus was hers until he said otherwise. And he was the only man she had ever really wanted.

Anya closed her eyes one more time before tucking her treasures back into the box.

_'My girlfriend, Anya.'_


	43. 25 weeks before E Day: 0753 Marcus

25 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Pomeroy Barracks, 0753 hours]

Marcus hadn't seen Anya in over a week and it was starting to get to him. She was around, sure, and he heard her voice through his earpiece whenever Control passed orders to 26 RTI, but it wasn't the same.

If he wasn't actively concentrating on something, his anxiety over her would suddenly pop up in his mind like a malicious jack-in-the-box. Marcus actually did have a mental box where he kept his concern for Anya, but the longer he went without seeing in person that she was safe and alive, the weaker the box's lock became.

The worry box was stowed inside a room in Marcus's memory palace. The "palace" was something his mother had helped him build when he was very young, and they added on to it as he got older. The basic layout of the palace had the same floor plan as Haldane Hall, the estate at East Barricade Academy where Marcus had grown up. It was easier to use a blueprint with which you were intimately familiar, his mother had explained. That way you wouldn't forget where you put things even if you hadn't used them in years.

Marcus didn't have a photographic memory, but if he pictured walking into his mother's study, he could pull down a biology textbook from the shelf and read the whole volume word for word as if it were physically in front of him. Such was the power of a memory palace* that he could perform this trick with at least a hundred full-length books that the Fenixes had had in their real-world libraries throughout the house.

Not everyone was temperamentally suited for a difficult mnemonic device like a memory palace. It took infinite patience, hundreds of hours of intense concentration and tremendous amount of willpower to not give up on such a taxing long-term endeavor. It had taken years for Marcus to even finish the ground floor as a child, much less the other levels of the house. And a memory palace was never really done. You either constructed an annex for the house or placed the new information in the garden or arbor. Its rooms could also be used to contain strong emotions so Marcus could deal with them later.

He didn't doubt that Deputy Chairman Prescott also used a memory palace; he'd never seen anyone besides his mother who was so self-controlled, so utterly aware of his surroundings at all times and who seemed to actually know it all. But Prescott's library was probably stocked with books that had titles like Tips for Evil Overlords and How to Achieve World Domination in Ten Easy Steps. Everyone agreed that Prescott was gunning for Chairman Dalyell's job, but the coup wouldn't be as obvious as poisoning his coffee. No, Prescott would orchestrate it in such a way that Dalyell believed he had given up his office of his own accord.

It was shortly before 0800 in the morning and Marcus was playing raise-the-radar-dish with C Company's sappers on top of the CIC. Combat engineers were essential to the smooth running of any military. Without sappers laying temporary bridges, constructing barricades, bunkers and trenches, supplying the front line with ammunition and operating heavy machinery, the entire battalion wouldn't even make it to the battlefield, much less be ready to fight. You also didn't want to get on the engineers' bad side because they constructed, planted, detonated, detected and disarmed landmines, and therefore had a shitload of explosives at their disposal. So if you didn't want the toilet to blow up in your face the next time you took a leak, you didn't piss off the combat engineers.

Marcus was garnering some goodwill toward 26 RTI by holding the new radar dish at chest level while the sappers bolted it to its supports. The dish was far too fragile to assemble lying flat on the roof and then lifting it into position. The combat engineers had requested Marcus for the job because it required someone able to hold a fifty-pound apparatus in exactly the same spot for nearly thirty minutes while still having a soft enough touch to not crumple the fragile spokes.

When Major Hoffman had given Marcus the order, he hadn't minded at all. The assignment meant that he had an excuse to stand there looking down on the main entrance for the CIC, which Anya was supposed to go through any minute now.

His trepidation over something happening to the people closest to him had been amplified tenfold after Carlos died a year and a half ago. He had always been a worrier, even as a child, but it had gotten much worse after his mother vanished. Following the Battle of Aspho Fields, checking on the well-being of his friends and family had nearly become an obsession.

Anya lived alone. She had only a basic security system and no guard dog. She commuted to work by herself, through a city with some of the worst drivers on Sera. She wasn't a frontline Gear so she didn't carry a sidearm, and she had only basic combat training. Any number of things could have happened to her since he'd last seen her. And because she wasn't family, he might not find out for days if something had happened to her. He hadn't been off-base in weeks, and he couldn't exactly call her from a military phone booth and say, "Hello, Lieutenant-I'm-not-supposed-to-be-fraternizing-with. Have you had any brushes with death lately?"

Marcus stuffed the damned jack-in-the-box back through its hole and refrained from asking the sappers what time it was. _'If she comes, she comes. And if she doesn't, I'll ask Dom to find out for me.'_ Marcus was glad at least one person knew about him and Anya. He rarely talked about her with Dom unless he was complimenting her professional skills, but Dom was so good with people that he was practically a mind reader. All Marcus would have to do is shake his head the next time he saw Dom, and his friend would go find someone who knew if Lieutenant Stroud had reported for duty today.

But it wouldn't be the same as seeing her in person. Nothing was the same as seeing her in person. Dom had snagged a regimental photo for Marcus that had Anya standing near the row of soldiers with last names F through G, but looking at it didn't give him the same electric charge as actually being in proximity to her.

"Almost done," one of the engineers told Marcus.

'_Shit,'_ Marcus thought. _'What if we have to leave before she gets here? _If _she gets here.'_ He gave the jack-in-the-box another mental shove and slammed the lid. He visualized putting it in a huge steamer trunk, flipping the catch down and using an industrial-grade padlock instead of the usual brass one. _'Try getting out of _that_, you little bastard.'_

In the dining room of his memory palace, he turns away from the trunk. Anya is standing there, safe and alive. "Marcus," she says serenely, "come join us for dessert." She takes him by the elbow and leads him to the table. He pulls out her chair for her and then seats himself. Now all eight places at the round table are filled. Anya is to Marcus's right. Carlos is on his left, bouncing Sylvia on his knee. The toddler shrieks in delight, but somehow it is not an annoying sound. She has the same smooth voice as her mother Maria, who is between Carlos and Dom. Although he still needs a booster seat to be level with his dessert, Benito is very pleased to have his own chair at the table like a big boy. Mom helps Benito grasp the large spoon in his hand correctly. Dad is engaging Anya in some ultra-complicated discussion about theoretical physics. Anya listens politely and manages to ask relevant questions, but whenever she takes a bite of the crème brulee she winks at Marcus so Adam can't see her. When Dad's done bending her ear about up-quarks and down-quarks, Anya turns her gorgeous eyes to Marcus. Putting her slender hand on his arm, she asks, "Marcus, do you think next week we could—"

There she was. Anya rounded the corner of the CIC's east wing and strode briskly down the sidewalk with her attaché case in hand. Marcus drank in the sight of her. The regulation high heels were a ridiculous addition to female officers' uniforms, but they showed off Anya's perfect legs. Black and gray were not flattering to most women, but on Anya the drab colors only emphasized her peaches-and-cream complexion and the brightness of her hair. Anya's coiffed head seemed to be sunlit even on the cloudiest of days, and if she'd ever been running too far behind to put on makeup in the morning, Marcus hadn't known the difference.

He watched her walk straight toward him from his position over the doors of the CIC, re-memorizing the sway of her walk so he could duplicate it in even finer detail in his memory palace. Anya stopped about twenty feet from the front door, frowning. She looked all around her like she'd heard a strange noise. When she'd turned in a complete circle she put her hand to the back of her neck as if the fine hairs there were bristling. Finally she looked up.

If Marcus had any doubts about Anya's affection for him, they were locked away in a steamer trunk that morning. Anya was clearly suppressing a delighted grin. She shyly cast her eyes down for a moment and tucked a strand of her bangs behind one ear. Before the combat engineers could notice her, she mouthed _Hello_ and continued walking toward the building. It was a good thing the sidewalk was perfectly flat because she kept her eyes on him the whole time. Marcus couldn't move very much without catching the sappers' attention, so he just softened his expression a tiny bit and gave her the smallest of nods. Anya re-tucked the strand of hair behind her ear again and disappeared into the CIC, still suppressing a smile.

'_Safe,'_ Marcus thought. _'Safe and alive.'_ He didn't realize how tight the muscles between his shoulder blades had been until they relaxed. That made the dish drop slightly, but since the sappers had just installed the last bolt it was perfect timing.

There was a round of thanks and congratulations on a job well done, and they all trooped down the stairwell and off to their next assignments.

Marcus had half an hour before his next job, assisting a drill sergeant with breaking in some new recruits. This particular drill sergeant liked to have Marcus around to loom menacingly over the class clowns while they were doing their 100 push-up penalties for cheekiness.

Since he didn't have to be at the parade ground for another half-hour, Marcus went to check the lavatory blocks and make sure Dom hadn't been collateral damage from an exploding latrine.

He shoved Dom's jack-in-the-box in a different steamer trunk and sat on it this time.

**# # #**

**Just a reminder for new readers: the "before E-Day" timeline runs ****backwards****. Essentially, the characters get younger and younger as their back-stories progress. Or maybe I should say "regress". Anyway, I can't take credit for this literary device: it was made famous by Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Faulkner in his brilliant short story, "A Rose for Emily". I also got the idea to alternate past and present from the Gears of War novels written by Karen Traviss. Much of the basis for the character traits used in my story comes from those books.**

*** The memory palace is a real method for memorizing information. Look it up if you're interested. I don't have a palace myself: I don't have Marcus's patience.  
**


	44. E Day plus 14 years 37 weeks: 1330 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base, 1330 hours]

Every spare minute Dom had had in the last five days he'd spent cleaning and furnishing the little apartment. He'd collected linens and furniture and kitchen utensils and trinkets like a male bowerbird trying to win a mate with the attractiveness of his nest. It was probably overkill, but the new Maria did like shiny things, no matter what they were.

When he unlocked the door and let her in first, he saw it with a much more critical eye. He'd left this morning feeling pretty good about the apartment. But fifteen years of living in places that were practically ruins had dulled his sensibilities. With Maria standing in the living room, he was horrified by just how _shabby_ it looked.

The couch's armrests were so worn that they were shiny. The plaid blanket draped over the back of it was almost see-through in places. The lower left square in the six-pane window was cracked all the way through and the white paint was peeling. He hadn't realized that the dining table had one leg shorter than the other three until just now. The chairs weren't even the same kind: one was straight-backed and the other had been a bar stool in a former life.

Dom looked around the main room with outrage burning in his chest. _'This isn't good enough for her. What a dump! These things don't deserve to be in the same_ room_ with her, much less touch her. Goddamned Grubs! They took my kids, my parents, my home, my wife's sanity and they couldn't even leave me a frigging armchair decent enough for her to sit in?'_ The last time Dom had felt this kind of rage at the Locust was in Jacinto when Anya told him that the woman they thought was Maria had been discharged from the hospital just a few days before.

He stared into the kitchen, unable to watch his precious girl stand in such squalor. The pots and pans in there were either warped or singed on the bottoms. A few of the plastic cooking utensils had been melted by being left on the edges of hot pans and the glasses were so scratched they were nearly opaque. In fact, everything factory-made in the apartment was someone's cast-off. The Peluran locals had donated everything they weren't using, and the rest were things the military had left behind because they weren't valuable enough to ship back to the mainland.

'_What am I going to do? This is the nicest stuff on the whole base! It's not like I can go down to the commissary and get better things for her. This is the best I can offer her. God damn it!'_ He was so upset he nearly put his fist through the wall.

"Ooo, pretty!" Maria cried. She rushed to the dining table and snatched up a cast iron trivet Dom had bartered from someone. She traced her fingers over the pattern with something like wonder and practically skipped back over to Dom. "Look, Don, it's a butterfly!" She showed it to him like a child waving a macaroni-art picture. Maria leaned sideways against his chest and admired the looping, curlicued shape. "Can I keep it?"

Dom hugged her loosely, astonished. "Yeah, baby, you can keep it."

She looked up at him with that brilliant, twisted smile. "Really?" She looked around the room, seeming to have less trouble focusing than normal. Maria pointed. "What about the blanket? Can I have that, too? I like the squares and the lines all together."

Dom's eyes stung. "Yeah, sweetheart, you can have it. Actually, everything in here is yours."

Maria gaped at him. "Mine? All of it?"

"Yours. All of it."

Maria squealed and clapped her hands like a kid about to open a pile of birthday presents. She danced away from Dom and proceeded to touch everything she could get her hands on. She put the window up and down, drew the drapes and opened them again, sat on the bar stool and spun around, took every bit of silverware out of the kitchen drawers so she could admire them all at once and ran her hand across the hanging pots like she was playing a xylophone.

"Mine, mine, mine!" she sang. Maria yanked an originally-white apron off a hook and put it over her head. "Tie it for me?" she asked, showing Dom her back. He did, still in a little bit of shock. "Look!" she demanded, twirling and nearly falling over her own feet. Dom caught her. She put her head on his chest and lifted the dingy hem so he could see it.

"It's...it's..." she frowned.

Dom's heart sank. _'She's noticed,'_ he thought miserably._ 'She's seen that it's stained. She's realized what crappy gifts these are.'_

Maria looked up at him pathetically, her chin quivering a little bit. "I can't remember what it's called."

"Huh?"

She showed him the scalloped edge of the apron. "This. I...I can't remember. It has a name, but I can't find it in here." Maria rubbed her forehead. "It won't come."

"Lace. It's called lace."

"Yes!" Maria shouted joyfully. Dom nearly dropped her. "Lace! That's it. Lace, lace, lace." She accordioned the off-white edging between her hands in time to her words. "I like lace."

Dom was still getting used to her mood swings. She could go from ecstatic to depressed and back again in a matter of seconds. Doc Hayman said that her emotions might stabilize once her brain had grown new neural connections to compensate for the missing gray matter, but that could take years. Dom kissed the top of her head. He didn't care if it took the rest of their lives. Mood swings were a small price to pay for her presence.

"I'm glad you like it," he whispered.

"I love it!" Maria craned her head over his shoulder. "What's that?"

Dom turned with her in his arms. "That's the bedroom." There was no bed frame, just a very big homemade mattress filled with straw, and a couple of chicken-down pillows. He hadn't been able to scrounge end tables yet.

"A bedroom? Whose bedroom?"

"Yours and mine."

"And who else?"

"Nobody else, just us."

Maria's eyes opened even wider than before. "We don't have to share?"

"Nope. We have it all to ourselves."

Maria gave him a conspiratorial little smile. She whispered, "Can we jump on the bed?"

Dom was pretty sure that would flatten out the straw, but he didn't care. They could always refill the mattress. "Go right ahead."

Maria ran into the little room and fell face first onto the thick mattress like she was cliff-diving. The mattress poofed out like a parachute and the escaping air whipped Maria's hair around her head. She laughed like mad and rolled over onto her back. "Come on, Don, it's fun!" She patted the fabric. "Jump!"

Dom felt an answering smile creeping across his face. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Jump."

Dom turned around and let himself fall backward onto the mattress. The low-tech cushioning didn't have springs, but his sudden weight still transferred enough force to bounce Maria into the air about an inch. She hooted with laughter when she landed.

Dom was feeling much more positive about the whole apartment thing.

Maria moved her arms and legs like she was making a tiny snow angel and her face grew sleepy. "Don, can I take a nap?"

He rolled onto his side and braced his head in his hand. "You can take all the naps you want. Right here in your very own bed."

Maria hummed happily. He slipped a feather pillow under her head. She hummed again. He reached over her and got the big re-patched quilt they would use for a coverlet. Maria wriggled down deeper into the mattress as Dom tucked her in.

When he moved to get up, however, she sat straight up in bed and grasped his wrist with a surprising amount of strength. "Don't leave! Please. I don't want to sleep alone."

Dom lay back, and the alarm drained out of her expression. She lifted the edge of the blanket so he could shimmy in beside her. "Sure, honey. I don't have to work today anyhow." Maria took his hand and placed it on the pillow so she could rest her cheek in his palm.

"Good. Because I want you to stay." Her words became slower and less clear as she was pulled down into slumber. "I want you to stay for always."

"I can do that." He stroked her silky hair back from her face. "I'll stay for always."


	45. 28 weeks before EDay: 1840 Baird

28 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Halvo Bay, 1840 hours]

Sharon burst through the back door of their workshop with such force that it rebounded off the wall and swung closed again behind her.

Damon looked up from where he was soldering two delicate wires. "How did the meeting with the Kellers go? Did your folks get the loan?"

"It wasn't a business meeting, it was a frigging _slave auction_!" Sharon picked up a jeweler's magnifying loupe and slung it at the far wall like she was skipping a stone across a lake.

Damon put his soldering goggles up on his forehead and surveyed the damage. "You could have thrown something a little less expensive," he joked. "I'm not made of money."

Normally that would have made Sharon laugh, but instead she put her face in her hands. He went to her and pulled her hands down, tipping up her chin so she would have to meet his eyes. "Sharon, what happened?"

She took his hand from her chin and held it. She stared down at their linked hands for a minute or two, tracing the bones beneath his skin with her fingertips. Damon was starting to get uneasy, but he knew better than to interrupt Sharon when she was thinking.

She started shaking her head long before she said anything. "They want me to marry James."

"They _what?"_ He must have heard wrong.

Her mouth twisted bitterly. "The Kellers want a Markham in their pedigree and they're willing to pay for it."

"But—but—" Damon felt like he was having an out-of-body experience.

"I told them," she said. "I told them you and I are engaged. I _told_ them!" Sharon looked a little disconnected herself. "They didn't care. They acted like I never said anything! They—they're—they're already planning the wedding! My mom and Mrs. Keller are sitting there right now picking out _china patterns!"_

Damon gripped her upper arms. "But you didn't say yes, right?"

"Of course not! I told them all where they could shove their proposal and got the hell out of there." She started shaking her head again, her eyes not really focused on the wall they were staring at. "The guards didn't even try to stop me. Everyone is acting like it's a done deal already."

Damon shook her slightly, just enough to get her attention. "What did James say about all this? He must have an opinion; it's his life too!"

Sharon looked like she was about to tell him DENIS had had a catastrophic failure. She said in a small voice, "James said he'd give us all forty million."

"He wh—" The realization was like being doused with a bucket of ice water. A snarl seized control of his face. "That frakker! That frakking son of a whore!" He paced the length of the shop and back, pounding a fist on each workbench he passed and making the tools and beakers rattle like wind chimes. The rage built inside him exponentially until it seemed like his veins were filled with fire. He stabbed a finger at her. "How long? How long has that lying asshole been in love with you?"

Sharon rubbed her arms. "Sophomore year, he said."

"Bastard! That goddamned traitor!" This time it was Damon hurling expensive things against the wall, punctuating each sentence with an explosion of glass and plastic. "I _knew_ I caught him staring at you! I frigging _knew_ it! I never should have trusted that son of a bitch!" James knew very well they were planning to elope as soon as Damon turned eighteen: he was supposed to be the best man.

Sharon slumped onto the couch. "I can't believe this." She rubbed her temples and stared through the concrete floor at some imagined hell. "This is a disaster."

"I'm going to beat the shit out of that coward!" Damon yelled, flinging a cathode-ray tube. It popped with a sharp crackling sound. Sharon rushed up from behind and put her arms around him, pinning his clenched hands to his sides.

"As much as I'd enjoy watching you pound the stuffing out of James right now," she said as he turned around in her arms, "I want you to stay here." She looked up at him with her molten-gold eyes. "I want you to lock the door and make love to me."

Of course he couldn't turn her down, especially when she looked so miserable. His wrath at James's betrayal was put on the back burner. Damon started the call-and-response they used to answer requests: a sentence from their favorite sci-fi novel*. A line about total devotion. "'I am my lady's dog,'" he quoted, and kissed the bridge of her nose.

Sharon tried to smile. She led him to the couch and pushed him down by his shoulders. "Sit," she commanded, straddling his lap. The skirt of her green dress fanned out over his legs. "Stay." She kissed his mouth tenderly, framing his face with her hands. "Good boy."

Damon admired her features with half-lidded eyes. "Woof-woof," he answered.

The couch Sharon had bought for the workshop was especially sturdy and could take a lot of punishment. It was also very springy, which they had tested out at the store by jumping up and down on the cushions, giggling like mad. That had almost gotten them kicked out until Sharon dropped her family's name and asked if that model came in a more expensive fabric. Up until the Markhams' investments were stolen and their main electronics factory burnt down, money had been a way to solve problems. Now it was causing them. Damon pulled her hips tight against his own.

Over the last year and half he and Sharon had made a science out of their physical relationship. There were dozens of variations but just three main levels: Level One was love-making, which was deeply personal and took its sweet time. Level Two was having sex, which was a little more creative and much louder, requiring a lot of privacy. Level Three was screwing, which included activities that were hard to spell and occasionally semi-public places like the back seat of Sharon's car or the Bairds' private enclosed opera box at the theater. There was no Level Four: that would be frakking, which was all about getting off as fast as possible, and it was never just about getting off for Damon and Sharon.

To their surprise, they preferred Level One with an occasional Level Two mixed in. Level Three might spike higher on the pleasure scale more often than One or Two, but it felt far too impersonal, like it could be done with anyone and have the same result. After much speculation and hypothesizing they came to the conclusion that unlike most teenage couples, orgasm was not the main goal: it was closeness and possession, an intimacy that was theirs alone.

Sex wasn't some illicit treat for them, the kind that is exciting because a relationship is a secret. It was more like communion, the physical aspect of their intense bond. As far as they were concerned, coupling their bodies was as natural and necessary as breathing. Marriage was a highly-anticipated public declaration of their relationship. They had been waiting for Damon's next birthday, when they would both be old enough to marry without their parents' permission.

Now all that was in jeopardy, thanks to one thief and one traitor.

Due to the frustration brewing in both of them, Damon expected this evening to be Level Three, complete with the attendant biting and scratching. But Sharon had requested love-making, and she was right about what they needed. They spent the better part of an hour tracing each other's faces and bodies, paying homage to every arch and dip of bone and muscle. It took nearly fifteen minutes just to get out of their clothes. Damon nipped almost every inch of Sharon that he could reach, keeping one hand on a breast at all times as if to burn the shape into his palm.

He'd never made out with anyone else, but he was absolutely convinced that Sharon had the ideal mouth. They were perfectly balanced lips that reddened with prolonged kissing until it looked like she had been eating raspberries. Damon was momentarily distracted by a memory involving raspberries, Sharon and whipped cream. He shook off the flashback that threatened to blind him and lowered his head to lick the hollow between her collarbones, one of his favorite places on her body.

Sharon wasn't movie-star gorgeous —except to him— but all the guys at school agreed she gave off a strong air of sensuality that few girls could duplicate. Damon couldn't really be surprised that James wanted her too. But he could hate him for it.

The sun had set by the time they were finished and Damon had spooned Sharon against his stomach. He drew his knees up behind hers and covered their bodies with the blanket draped over the back of the couch. She shivered even though it was hot in the shop and they were both coated in sticky sweat. Sharon reached back and found his hand, tangling her fingers in his.

"Damon," she confessed, "I'm scared."

That worried him more than anything else she had said today. Sharon was a born daredevil, absolutely fearless. If monsters under the bed were real, they would have run away screaming at her approach. But if Sharon was afraid, then they were in real trouble.

He pressed their intertwined fingers to his mouth and tried to comfort her. "We'll find a way to fix this, Sharon. We will. I'll come up with a way to get my inheritance, or we'll get the patent for the anti-grav upgrade processed faster, or something. We've got options." He rested his cheek on hers. "I don't care if they're planning a wedding already, we'll find a way out of this. Right after I murder James."

Sharon laughed weakly. "You'd never make it past the bodyguards." He didn't think it was wise just then to tell her he knew how to neutralize them, or that the Kellers' security system had a flaw that didn't require DENIS to exploit. Damon could feel from the tremor in her body that she was trying very hard to hold it together.

"I feel like a horrible person," she said.

"What? Why? Why would you think that?" Sharon was as far from "horrible person" as humanly possible.

She turned over to look at him, her head pillowed on his arm. "Because I think if it came down to it, I'd choose you over my family. I'd sacrifice them to be with you." Her chin dimpled as she tried to keep her lips from quivering. "It's not just me and my mom that Dad's money supports. It's dozens of people. His money pays for my cousins to go to fancy prep schools like ours, and their university tuition. He pays for both sets of grandparents to live in nice retirement communities instead of those awful government institutions. You know that new hospital wing for the burn clinic? He donated half of the money for that. He supports our relatives and friends who are sick or disabled. Not to mention the salaries for the hundreds of people who work for him." She pulled her hand free from his and played nervously with the edge of the blanket. "I can't even count the number of people who'll be living in poverty if we don't come up with a lot of money, fast."

Damon retrieved her hand. "It won't come to that." His mind was already churning out scheme after scheme. More than a few involved flaying James alive. "Worst case scenario, we go hide out somewhere until I'm eighteen." If they were caught before his birthday, as the legal adult of the pair Sharon could be charged with kidnapping if Jocelin and Elinor were feeling particularly vindictive. Which they usually were: vindictiveness was practically their default setting. And since Jocelin was a judge he knew all the legal tricks it would take to get Sharon thrown in jail.

He continued. "Then we'll use our nest egg to start a machine shop and support ourselves with that until we get back on our feet." He shrugged. "Easy."

Sharon made an amused noise. "Easy enough for us, especially since the rent is paid through the next two years." She twirled a finger to indicate the workshop that the two of them (mostly Sharon, since Damon didn't have much money of his own) had set up years ago so they would have a private place to work and talk and ... other things. "But what about my family?"

"They can get their own damned jobs." Sharon could care deeply about an infinite number of people. It was one of the things he admired most about her, especially because Damon knew he had a limited amount of affection himself. Maintaining his friendship with James and his love affair with Sharon had always been a delicate balancing act. It was a decade-long, concentrated effort which had all been for nothing. _'I should have cut James out of my life as soon as I met Sharon. That bastard.'_ No seven-year-old kid could have had such predictive capabilities, however.

Sharon huffed softly. "All of them? Even the little old ladies and the schoolchildren? My mom has no employable skills unless there's a position open for Official Fundraiser Attendee. And most of our relatives are just as bad. They're so used to living off capital gains that they never bothered to learn anything."

Damon could feel she was starting to get wound up again, so he sucked gently on her earlobe and ran his fingertips down her spine, a technique that relaxed her every time. Sharon's muscles loosened up. They made out for a long while, too spent for more sex, just reveling in the delight of their lips and tongues moving in tandem. They'd started kissing at thirteen years old and had applied so much dedication to the craft that they were very, very good at it.

Finally Sharon pressed her forehead to his chin with a huge sigh. "I take it you're going to be in deep shit with your dad even if you go home right now?"

"Yeah. Might as well stay out all night if I'm going to catch hell anyway. I'm sure the Kellers called my parents hours ago to tattle on us." Besides not wanting Jocelin and Elinor to have any contact at all with his girlfriend, Damon had also kept their relationship secret because there was a long-standing feud between the Bairds and the Markhams over stock in Griffin Imulsion Corporation. Jocelin had formidable judicial influence, but the Markhams had the letter of the law on their side, so the dispute had been going round and round in the court system for decades. Damon wasn't afraid of his father's whippings, but he wasn't a masochist either: he couldn't calculate the number of beatings he had probably avoided by hiding Sharon from that asshole. He'd receive the same amount of punishment if he went home now than if he spent the rest of the night with Sharon.

Sharon stroked his currently-unmarked back. "What do you want to do until morning, then?"

"Well, we can't go anywhere public because my dad'll have the police looking for us." A devious grin spread across his face. "I say we break into the community pool and go skinny-dipping."

She laughed, and the contraction of her stomach muscles against his groin made desire stir in him again. He knew he wouldn't be able to repeat his performance so soon, but by the time they'd snuck across town and broken into the pool, he might. And having sex with Sharon underwater was one of his favorite permutations of Level Two.

Sharon purred in his ear, "That sounds fantastic." Her face softened with a more innocent emotion when she pulled back. This was the look that always made Damon wonder what he had ever done to deserve her. "I love you," she said.

This was another call-and-response. Damon answered with a grin. "Damn right you do." He whipped the blanket off her tempting form and dropped the white lace bra onto her stomach. "Gear up, sugar. Let's go break the law."

"Don't bother putting your boxers back on," she said, tapping the soldering goggles he was still wearing. Whenever they got busy in the shop she insisted he leave them on. She said they added to the experience. "These are all you're going to be wearing in the pool."

"I am my lady's dog," he repeated with a leer.

"Woof-woof," she said.

**# # #**

*** Okay, I'll give you this one: the novel is ****Shards of Honor**** by Lois McMaster Bujold. It's the first volume in the Miles Vorkosigan series, and if you haven't read those books yet, you have not truly experienced military sci-fi.**


	46. E Day plus 14 years 37 weeks: 2115 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base, 2115 hours]

Baird woke up by stages in the lethargic way of someone who has slept more than usual. At first the digital numbers on the chronometer/compass/barometer strapped to his wrist seemed to make about as much sense as Locust symbols. 2115, it finally said. His heavy eyelids drifted shut again. _'Almost eight hours,'_ he thought. _'When's the last time I had eight hours of uninterrupted sleep? Probably before boot camp.'_

There was something odd about that. He was still very drowsy from what his body now considered to be over-sleeping, so analytical thinking was difficult. Ah. Uninterrupted: that was the odd part. It was the first time in six weeks that he hadn't been startled out of REM sleep. Why?

He heard the _cling-cling_ sound of a wrench being dropped on the concrete floor and a mild curse in a very familiar voice.

Sharon's voice.

Baird sat bolt upright on the old couch, his body suddenly flooded with adrenaline. The first thing his eyes lit on was Sharon's fantastic ass as she bent over to pick up the dropped wrench.

'_Of course. Of frigging course she would have to drop a wrench just now.'_ He rubbed his eyes with his index and thumb and forced back a wave of memories involving Sharon bent over in that position._ 'Dammit, dammit, dammit.'_

"Oh, you're awake," he heard her say.

"Mmm-hmm," he acknowledged, still rubbing his eyes. "Had to catch up on lost sleep." When his mind was fully back in the present, he put his hand down and looked around the shop slowly until his eyes came to rest on her. She was holding the wrench in both hands and frowning at him like she'd been asked a trick question. "What?" he asked.

Sharon gestured toward his forehead with the wrench. "Do you always sleep with those on, or did you forget to take them off because you were tired?"

Baird's hand went to his forehead. Oh. The multipurpose goggles. "It's because I was tired. I usually sleep with the strap around my wrist. If you leave valuable stuff lying around these days, it tends to disappear, even on a military base." He thought of Parry the chief engineer and Sharle the emergency management supervisor. Dirty thieves, both of them. "_Especially_ on a military base."

"Ah," she said. She turned back to the bundle of wires and plates she was tinkering with, still frowning slightly.

He realized what was bothering her. Another group of memories about a couch and soldering goggles floated up into his conscious mind. Baird rubbed his eyes again. _'Dammit. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.'_ Then he remembered his nauseating dreams: Sharon drowning, Sharon beheaded, Sharon being pulled into a meat grinder, Sharon blown apart by a landmine, Sharon being eaten alive by a swarm of Kryll, Sharon liquefied, burned, dismembered, tortured, stabbed, electrocuted, the list went on. Every night his unconscious had dreamed up new horrors to put him through. No, a little sexual tension was something he could handle. He hadn't been driven crazy with lust for fifteen years and he'd be damned if he was going to let her get to him now._ 'Bring it on, you cheating bitch. Bring it on.'_

He stood up from the couch full of new determination. The bed of the Packhorse was still holding the large steel crates that were too heavy for Sharon. Baird hauled over the mini-lift with the scissor-fold legs and attached an electric screwdriver to the shaft threaded through the joints. He revved the screwdriver until the lift was level with the bed of the truck and started sliding boxes onto it. He wheeled the first set over to Sharon, and that's when he noticed the line down the middle of the floor. She hadn't used any of their precious duct tape, but she _had_ found chalk somewhere. He was willing to bet if he ran a measuring tape across the room that the line would bisect the concrete perfectly.

"Ha frigging ha, Sharon."

She smirked at him. "I asked back at Port Farrall and you said I could if I wanted to."

"I see you haven't matured very much."

"And I never will!" she declared. "I still snap my gum, I still flick rubber bands at people I don't like and I still see if sharpened pencils will stick in the acoustic tiles of classroom ceilings."

"None of those things you named exist anymore. They've all been used up, burnt in the Hammer strikes or crumbled into dust years ago."

"Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine?"

"Better than being a perpetual child. I never thought I'd be the adult in this rela—" he stopped dead. _'Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Five minutes and I'm already rolling over and showing my underbelly. Why don't I just put my tail between my legs and beg for treats?'_

But Sharon said blandly, "Look, Damon. We had a previous relationship. Let's not try to pretend we didn't. We're bound to slip up and say stuff like that from time to time. It's just habit. So let's agree to ignore it when it happens, okay?" She looked like she was making a business proposal to a board of directors.

"I second that."

"Motion carried. Now," she made her eyebrows jump. "Wanna see my new gadget?"

He wanted to be disinterested, he really did. But new technology was his soft spot. Maybe she was manipulating him and maybe she wasn't. Or maybe she was just so proud of her creation that she couldn't contain herself anymore.

That last one was the most likely, so he said, "Sure. Let's see it."

Sharon clapped her hands and actually went, "Eeee!" She whipped a rag off the gizmo she'd been hiding. "Ta-da!"

Baird squinted at the thing. "It looks like a potato gun. A potato shotgun, I mean." It had a pistol grip, a joint, a short cyclinder, another joint and a very wide barrel.

"Pretty similar," she said, "except it doesn't fire potatoes. Come on outside and I'll show you."

She went out the side door. Baird shrugged and decided there was no reason not to follow her. "What exactly does it fire, then?"

She grinned at him as she led him behind the shop to a triangular stack of empty plastic drums. "Sound."

"You're shitting me."

"Sound is basically pressure waves hitting your eardrum first and eventually being translated to your brain. Which is why that whole 'if a tree falls in the forest' question is—"

"—a load of crap," Baird finished for her. "It has to vibrate someone's eardrum and the auditory apparatus behind it to make 'sound', otherwise it's just pressure waves moving through the air. It's not a paradox at all."

"Exactly. Well, I figured out how to store pressure waves in here." She patted the central part of the double-jointed shotgun. "The waves become sound when it's fired in the presence of a hearing person."

He wrinkled his nose. "What do you mean? It wouldn't work on a deaf person? Is it like one of those sonic crowd-control devices? Because you know someone already invented that."

"No, sorry, I wasn't clear about that. A hearing person will detect a noise when it's fired, but the pressure waves will hit the target whether they can hear it or not." She worked the handle and barrel at the ends of the central chamber like pedals on a bicycle and brought them back to their original position. "That movement causes the pressure-wave generators at each end of the central chamber to make densely concentrated waves that are then amplified and bounced back and forth between them until they are used. It's like getting swept off your feet by a strong wind." Sure enough, Baird could now hear a low humming noise. She held up a finger, grinning like an idiot. "Observe."

She aimed the shotgun* one-handed at the triangle of drums and pulled the trigger. There was a sound like a stone dropping into a lake, except it was at the extreme low end of Baird's range of hearing. He didn't see anything, but the empty drums were flung backward about thirty feet.

Sharon turned to him with a glowing face while he stood there with his mouth open. "What do you think?" she asked.

"I...I...I want to try it. I want to try it _right now_."

Sharon beamed. "Well then, go set up the drums again and I'll let you have a turn."

They blasted almost everything non-breakable that they could find, ranging from the empty drums to bottles filled with rocks and even a tower of sandbags. Baird had to hold back from whooping every time his target was shoved violently backwards with just sound waves.

"I'm sure you've noticed that the heavier the target is, the less distance it flies." Sharon was in the teacher groove, using her "Madame Professor" voice.

"Yeah, because the more mass or weight it has, the less impact a wave will have on it. Any kind of wave."

"Yup. And the same for bigger, farther away or more solid objects. The wave gets attenuated too fast or is reflected off." She patted the barrel of the gun in his hands. "It's completely non-lethal except at point-blank range. Right up against the barrel the force is so concentrated it would rupture internal organs."

"Non-lethal? Who the hell needs non-lethal weapons these days? We want weapons that are as lethal as possible."

"Crowd control for food riots or if there's a civilian you need to stop without killing them. As long as they're more than two feet away, the force isn't actually enough to hurt, it just knocks them off their feet and backwards a couple yards. The target is only disoriented for a few moments, but that's often all you need. And if they're especially persistent, you can use it over and over without causing injury. Of course, they could always break something if they fall wrong, but that doesn't happen very often."

"What do you mean, 'very often'? You've used this a lot?"

"I only finished it a couple of days before _Sovereign_ launched. But my people set up a big stack of soft stuff and we took turns blasting each other all afternoon. The adults loved it as much as the kids." She tapped the gun again. "Just don't crank it three times without pulling the trigger or it'll blow up in your face."

He tilted it so he could see the green stripe on the side. "So that's what the indicator is for."

"Yep. Red means it's already been cranked and green means the chamber is empty." She waggled her eyebrows. "Want to see what it's like on the receiving end?"

"Hell no," he gripped the shotgun tightly to his chest. "I'm not entirely convinced it won't scramble my insides. And you do have pretty good motivation to blow up my internal organs."

They both stood still for a minute at the mention of the elephant in the room. Baird instantly regretted bringing it up when the peace between them was so fragile. _'That's me all over,'_ he thought_. 'Always blurting out the wrong thing at the wrong time.'_

Sharon stared through him like she was someplace else. "You know—" she started to say.

He tensed up. _'Oh, God, I can't go back to those nightmares. Please don't leave.'_ He would never say that out loud, but it didn't stop him from thinking it.

"—James forgave you pretty much right after it happened," she continued.

"What? Why the hell would he do that? I kicked the shit out of him! He frigging _almost died! _How can—I mean, how could he just forgive that?" Baird could do advanced calculus in his head, but this kind of behavior was totally beyond his understanding.

Sharon came back from Never-Never-Land. "You know—you knew James. He couldn't hold a grudge to save his life." She shrugged. "Literally, as it turns out."

"That's just ... I don't get it." Baird fiddled with the shotgun, not wanting to look at her.

Sharon bit her lip and stared at the ground. "Later—much later—he told me about the note he'd sent. He told me he provoked you on purpose."

"What the hell?" Sharon looked up at him. "He _wanted_ me to hurt him? Why?"

She rubbed her arms like she did when she was nervous. "He said he felt bad about ... about all the crap that went down back then."

Baird heard Cole's voice repeating _Just avoid saying things like "Well, he deserved it,"_ but he was way too fired up to rein himself in. "He damn well _should_ have felt bad about it! _He stole my_ _frakking life!"_

Sharon flinched back at his yelled words.

"Goddammit, Sharon, stop acting like I'm going to hit you!"

"You hit James!" she yelled back with her hands fisted at her sides.

"James was a _guy!_ You're a _girl!_ There's a huge difference, or weren't you paying attention in biology class?"

"You admitted hitting Sam multiple times! You got in a bar fight with Bernie! What do you call that?"

"They aren't girls, they're frontline soldiers! They want to play by the boys' rules, so I treat them like boys! They even insist on being called boys' names instead of Samantha and Bernadette!" After saying Bernie's full name he suddenly ran out of hot air, like a deflating balloon. "Besides, I never actually hit Bernie."

Sharon's hands loosened, but she was still frowning. "Why not?"

"Ummm..." He fiddled with the shotgun again.

"She knocked you out, didn't she?" Sharon crowed. "You got punched out by a girl!" She started laughing at him.

"I did _not_ get knocked out!" Now he was indignant in a totally different way. "She sucker-punched me in a pressure point!" He pointed to the relevant bundle of nerves just below and behind the jaw.

Sharon dialed it back to a giggle. "Yeah, that would do it. I'm surprised it didn't make you black out. Good for her; that's the only way a sixty-year-old woman could win a fight with a thirty-three-year-old man." Her laughter threatened to ramp back up. "So why did you get in a tussle with a little old lady?"

Baird stiffened up even more. "Look," he pointed at her with the un-cranked shotgun's barrel, "first of all, Bernie's no little old lady and she'll be the first one to tell you so. Second, _she_ was the one who called _me_ out, not the other way around. I figured if a soldier wants a bar-room brawl, I'll give them one, double X chromosomes or not."

Sharon was still gulping back her giggles. "What was the fight about?"

He waved his shotgun-less hand in the air dismissively. "Something about the honor of the sainted Marcus Fenix. I forget what."

Sharon nodded in understanding. "I can believe it. The Two-Six RTI soldiers seem pretty tightly knit."

"Yeah, it's a frigging heroes' club. Unvanquished and all that crap. They sure wouldn't be unvanquished any longer if we still had regiments."

"All right." Sharon clapped her hands together. "So, truce?"

He thought about it. "Yeah, okay. Truce." Not waking up spewing like Cole on a helicopter had been a nice change of pace. "I can be an adult about this if you can."

She smirked. "I'll try. Although if I find some gum, I'm still going to snap it."

Neither of them suggested shaking on it. A truce was enough progress for one day.

"So," Sharon said. "Want to try the shotgun on a living target?"

"Are you volunteering?"

"Sure. I've done it a dozen times already." The shop backed up onto a small rise, probably a mound of displaced dirt from digging a space for the foundation of the shop. It had stood there unattended long enough that it was covered in a springy layer of long green grass that had years' worth of dry grass beneath it. Sharon placed herself in front of the mound and waved him back a couple more feet. "Okay," she said, holding her arms out like a parachuter. "Fire away."

Baird cranked the shotgun and aimed it with his arm straight out. The gun had no kickback to worry about and was surprisingly lightweight. It had a pistol grip instead of a stock and only needed to be pointed in the general direction of the target because the pressure waves spread out like a cone that got wider and wider the more distance it traveled.

But he found he couldn't pull the trigger. He started to squeeze and _She's so small compared to him that he can keep everything pressed down inside with one hand while he fumbles for the surgical plastic. _

He cleared his throat and shook it off, re-aiming the gun. He got ready to fire and _Sharon is lying face-down with her head turned toward the door. The looped chains hanging from the ceiling sway gently with the motion of the barge._

After two more tries and two more nightmare flashbacks, he gave up. "I can't do it," he admitted to her. "I don't want to pull the trigger on a girl." He shrugged as she came forward to take the gun. The truth was that having an eidetic memory was as much a curse as it was a blessing. Past events, including dreams, often surfaced without warning. He could remember in perfect detail the sights, sounds, smells, sensations and tastes of almost everything that had ever happened to him. He could also re-experience the emotions he'd felt at the time, and the sheer terror he'd endured during the nightmares had come back along with the memories. "Call me old-fashioned," he said, making a great effort to choke back the nausea as he handed her the shotgun.

"Old-fashioned," she called him. Baird rolled his eyes at her. "Do you want to be the target, then?"

"I guess so." He put on his goggles and took her place in front of the grassy hill. Sharon came a little closer.

"To get the same effect on you, I have to be a bit closer since you're about twice my size." She eyed him clinically. "Maybe more than twice." She took another step forward and aimed.

He didn't have to close his eyes against the coming blast of displaced air, but the anticipation still made him squint involuntarily. His internal organs quivered despite her assurances.

The deep bass thump sounded again and an invisible hand picked him up and shoved him ten feet back into the cushioned mound. For a moment it felt like he had learned to fly.

This time he did whoop as he bounced back up. He put up his goggles and rushed toward her. "That was friggin' awesome!" he yelled. He stopped just short of scooping her up and spinning her around like he would have done when they were kids. Sharon saw him jerk to a stop and gave him a deliberately bland look. Baird cleared his throat. They'd agreed to ignore things like this, and it seemed like she was going to keep her end of the deal. This time.

"I want to do that again!" he demanded. Just then his watch beeped. "Shit. It's twenty-two hundred. I have to go get my housing assignment before the admin office closes or I'll be sleeping on the gym floor."

"Well, I was about done for the evening anyway," Sharon said as they went back inside. "I'm a little tired from moving a bunch of crates while a cranky little princess was taking a nap." Her eyes sparkled with suppressed laughter. Since Baird knew the comment was more to amuse herself with her cleverness than to embarrass him, he didn't rise to the bait.

He dug in his pocket and came up with a large key and a strip of paper. "Like I said, valuable things tend to go missing around here, so I've soldered the skylights and windows shut and refurbished the keypad on the people-door. You'll need this key to unlock the cover for the keypad, and this is the code." He put both of them in her waiting palm. "Don't forget to—"

"—burn after reading. I got it. Thanks." She stuck the key and paper in her pocket and put the sonic shotgun in a case and shut it. She spun the dials for it and said, "I'll let you look at its innards tomorrow. Right now I am starving." A high-pitched growl from her stomach gave credence to her words. "See you in the morning. I'll be back at oh eight hundred." And with that she was gone.

Baird leaned his elbows on his end of the workbench and breathed a sigh of relief while he rubbed his face. _'That went better than I thought. We might actually make this shared-shop thing work.'_ He closed and locked the workshop before he gave into the temptation to break open the shotgun case and run around the base blasting things. The mental image of blowing Hoffman's hat right off that bald head was almost too tempting to be borne.

**# # #**

*** I can't take credit for the sonic shotgun idea: I got it from the movie "Minority Report", which has the coolest non-lethal weapons I've ever seen on film. I did have to come up with an explanation that sounds plausible, though.  
**

**I'd like to thank **Dv4021** and **silentfyre** for their reviews. You let me know what the readers like so I can keep doing it. Thanks, guys!**

**P.S. I also like to print out your reviews and roll around in them like money.**


	47. E Day plus 14 years 37 weeks: 2300 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base, 2300 hours]

After their nap, Dom and Maria spent the rest of the day in their apartment, just the two of them. It was the first day in a long, long time that Dom would have called "fun".

Marcus delivered their meager possessions to their door along with some basic foodstuffs. Maria barely noticed "Mark" show up in the doorway, but he said a polite hello and goodbye to her anyway. Marcus gave Dom that not-quite-smiling face that meant he was happy for him and left as soon as he could, knowing Dom wanted Maria's time all to himself.

Dom felt selfish, but in a good way, like he had during their brief honeymoon eighteen years ago. They hadn't been able to afford a trip anywhere, but Adam Fenix had insisted on paying for a week at the most expensive hotel in Ephyra as a wedding present. He must have paid a hefty bonus to the staff as well, because instead of looking down on Dom and Maria for their obviously working-class clothes, they had treated them like Silver Era royalty. At first Dom had felt a little embarrassed that he hadn't been able to pay for their honeymoon himself, but soon he decided that Maria deserved to experience the finer things at least once in her life and he didn't care who paid for it.

There had been room service and fresh flowers and expensive chocolates on the pillows and massages and visits from hairdressers and outrageously lavish dinners in the VIP section of the restaurant. Anything they requested, they got. Usually the top-shelf version of what they'd asked for. If they requested champagne, they got Dom Perignon*. If they asked for scrambled eggs they got a quail-egg omelette flavored with saffron. Once Maria requested another bathrobe and they gave her a plush-lined satin dressing gown to take home with her. It looked like a queen's robe and she'd walked around their immense penthouse suite wearing it for the rest of the day. And not much else, if he remembered correctly.

Maria had written Mr. Fenix an effusive thank-you note and Adam had insisted it was the least he could do for one of his son's best friends. Dom suspected Adam was being so overly generous because he was grateful that Marcus _had_ friends, let alone best ones.

Today in their shabby little apartment, Maria showed the same wonder and excitement that she'd had for the decadent trappings in that five-star hotel. Apparently her short-term memory hadn't held on to what she had inspected before her nap because she took the same delight in her new possessions that evening as she had in the afternoon.

The mottled apron might as well have been a satin dressing gown, the chicken eggs were exclaimed over as if they were from a quail and she drank the weak tea he made for her like it was the finest champagne.

Power and water had been restored to the family housing on base, so Dom was able to show her how everything worked. Maria squealed for joy when she saw that the toilet and shower in the tiny bathroom had running water, a real towel instead of a rag, and their very own bar of soap. She was fascinated by the Coriolis force* that made the toilet water swirl clockwise and would have kept flushing it if Dom hadn't distracted her with the shower. She had wanted to try that as well, but Dom convinced her to wait until after they cooked dinner.

Making flatbread only required mixing flour, baking soda, salt and oil to a certain consistency and heating it in a cast iron pan, so they make a whole stack. Maria wore her new apron proudly, and Dom showed her how to turn the electric stove on and off. Then he stood behind her and guided her hands through mixing and toasting the circles of flatbread. He warned her a few times about not touching hot burners and showed her the covers she could put over them while they were cooling to keep from getting singed. Maria was never to be in the apartment alone—there were too many accidents waiting to happen—but better safe than sorry.

They weren't wasteful, but they did get a little bit of flour strewn around. When Maria showed a spark of her old humor by flicking a bit of dough over her shoulder at his face, he got that horribly wonderful laughing-crying feeling again. Dom hugged her tight and told her how much he loved her. She didn't say it back —she hadn't done that at all yet— but she rested her cheek on his shoulder for a moment before going back to work. Some things got through to her and some didn't, but Dom could wait. Pre-war Maria had always told him he had the patience of a saint. Maybe some of the times she seemed to be deliberately ignoring him would test that patience eventually; but right now everything she did seemed to fit the situation perfectly, every word spoken had the sweetest tone possible and every movement of her body was like a choreographed dance.

He wished he didn't have to go back to work tomorrow.

They sat at the table whose legs Dom had sanded down to equal lengths while she had watched in utter fascination. Dom was showing her how to make the precious butter go as far as possible on one piece of bread. Maria didn't catch on that she was the only one with a fried egg. Dom was rationing them just for her. He could get his protein tomorrow from the tasteless gunk at the mess hall. Sometimes the cooks wouldn't even tell the Gears what it was, just that it was "good protein". Baird said it was most likely beef-flavored soy curds and pig gelatin.

Dom would sell his internal organs for real food before he'd let Maria ingest that slop.

But apparently he wouldn't have to part with a chunk of his liver: the staff at the food distribution center had given him a crate of all the essential food items —even a small bag of salt!— when he had gone by with his military-issued ration card. He had almost insisted they take it back, not wanting to capitalize on his notoriety, when the exquisite aroma of Vectes-grown peaches reached his nose. Then and there he knew he had to give them to Maria, and damn the guilt of taking more than his share. The chief of the food center whispered that he should come back next week and he'd get pretty much the same amount. Dom made a mental note to find something he could do for the man.

Maria was also unaware that Dom was slipping pieces of his bread onto her plate whenever she looked away from the table to admire something in the room. "Ooo, look!" she said for the third time that day. "There's a thingy on the wall!"

"Clock," Dom repeated each time she said this. "It's called a clock." It was an old fashioned miniature pendulum clock that didn't need batteries, just winding. Her enthralled gaze followed the tiny pendulum back and forth and she nearly missed her mouth when she brought the buttered bread up for a bite.

Dom slipped another piece onto her plate.

She swallowed her bite of bread before talking, another thing that gave Dom hope that not all of her memories and personality had been erased: pre-war Maria had been a real stickler about talking with your mouth full.

"Clock. A clock. Is that ours too?" Several hours ago she had stopped saying "mine" and started saying "ours", which was immense progress for just one day. Including Dom in her circle of self was a huge conceptual step for someone with limited intelligence. Sharon and the schoolteacher Mrs. Wilson had been ecstatic about Maria's rapid progress since Dom had come back into her life. Things that normally took months for her to learn were happening in days. She still didn't remember their life together and was a little fuzzy on the idea of marriage, but the fact that she was improving rapidly just by being around him was proof positive that she felt a strong emotional bond.

"Yup. We don't have to share it with anyone. It's going to stay right here for as long as we want."

"Oh, good! Because I think it's very pretty." She took another bite of her flatbread.

Her appetite had also come back in force. During the last six weeks she had gained weight rapidly, where before it had been all the nomads could do to keep her from getting so thin that her body started to devour her bones and muscles just to keep itself alive. For all intents and purposes she had been severely anorexic for the three years that she traveled with Sharon and her people. Now she had regained nearly all of her voluptuous curves, something that had not gone unnoticed by her husband.

Now that he was going to be Maria's primary caretaker, he would have to help her dress, undress and bathe until she could manage those tasks completely on her own. This was the one thing he was not looking forward to: having to keep his hands off her while actually having his hands _on_ her. Maria had only been able to process the most basic of the-birds-and-the-bees lessons from Mrs. Wilson's sex ed class: pretty much all she understood was that babies grew in the mothers' bellies, but in a special place that wasn't the stomach. She didn't comprehend how sexual reproduction worked, and sex was such an intensely biological act that making love to her in her current state of mind would be uncomfortably close to rape. So no matter how much he was aching to touch her, no matter that he hadn't been with a woman in ten years**, he would have to control himself.

This was going to be harder than the torture-resistance training he'd endured in commando school.

It was a lot like the couple of years between when Dom had noticed that Maria wasn't just a girl: she was _female_, and the day they'd lost their virginity together. _'Dear God in Heaven, I never thought I'd have to go through _this _again.'_ He was jealous of the food touching her lips, the silverware in her hands, even the damn chair that she was sitting on. He also couldn't help the paradox going around and around in his head: _'She's naked under those clothes. Completely nude. Without apparel. Au naturel.'_ The apron and her rough-hewn dress were as erotic to him as if she'd been in bed covered with just a thin sheet.

He forced himself to breathe slowly and count backwards from fifty. _'Get ahold of yourself, Santiago. Remember the Pesanga water torture training. You are a rock: immovable, unchangeable, without feeling. Your body is here and your mind is someplace else. Your mind is back home with your family. You're in your house. The kids are asleep in their rooms. Your wife is slowly shrugging off her negligee—'_

"_Damn_ it!" he said out loud and thumped his forehead on the table in frustration. _'Nothing in commando training prepared me for this. It really should have been on the curriculum.'_

"What's wrong?" He lifted his head and saw Maria staring at him with wide eyes. "Are you okay?" Concern for others was another unteachable skill that she had finally mastered, even if so far it only extended to Dom.

"I'm fine. I just wanted to put my head down for a second." That was technically true, although what he had really wanted to do was beat his head against a brick wall. Dom's eyes went instinctively to Maria's breasts. Beating his head against a wall dropped down to a very distant second on his list of wants. "You know what, sweetheart? I think I'm going to take a shower."

'_A very, very cold shower.'_ Most people hadn't had a warm shower in over ten years, but Dom was hoping whatever well this complex drew its water from had been dug extra deep.

"Can we take a shower together?"

"_No!"_ He turned down the volume of his voice. "I mean, you said you wanted to practice showering by yourself, right?"

"Oh, right. I guess we can take a shower together another day."

"Someday, honey. Someday."

'_Please, God, let it be someday soon.'_

Dom disrobed as fast as he could and stepped into the narrow shower. He turned the cold water on full blast.

After he'd shocked his body with enough cold to keep it chaste for a while, he re-dressed and let Maria have a turn while he cleaned up the dishes. He concentrated on cleaning them so completely that he was able to not fantasize about what Maria looked like in the shower.

Clothes were so scarce that no one had proper sleepwear these days. Dom got ready for bed by simply stripping down to his undershirt and boxers. He put Maria's nightgown (a long T-shirt that originally belonged to a very tall man) in front of the bathroom door and set about re-fluffing the mattress. He was still chilly enough that he wasn't tempted to turn around when she opened the door and retrieved the nightgown.

Finally they were settled in bed and Dom was doing an admirable job of not groping his wife as she cuddled up to him beneath the quilt.

"Tell me a story," she demanded in a soft, sleepy voice.

"Ummm..." Dom couldn't actually remember any fairy tales. He had put away the memories of telling them along with the ones of Bennie and Sylvie, and he wasn't ready to let all of that out again. Getting Maria back was all the emotional turmoil he could deal with for a while. "How about a poem?" Maria had loved poetry, and Dom had read and re-read the books she'd left behind when she disappeared. He had dozens of poems memorized.

"Does it have a love story in it?" Unsurprisingly, most of Maria's poetry books had been about love.

"Sure, honey, I can tell you a love poem." ***

"Oh, good." Maria snuggled closer to his side and closed her eyes in anticipation.

Dom stared down at her face. He knew just the poem to use, the one that had haunted him almost daily since he first read it a decade ago. He couldn't count the number of times he had wished she were there to hear those words.

"Music I heard with you was more than music," he said honestly. "And bread I broke with you was more than bread."

Maria made a contented noise and nestled her head on his shoulder.

"Your hands once touched this table and this silver," he continued. "And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. These things do not remember you, beloved, and yet your touch upon them will not pass." He closed his eyes, but not to help him remember the poem. He would never need help remembering it. "For it was in my heart you moved among them, and blessed them with your hands and with your eyes. And in my heart they will remember you always: they knew you once, O beautiful and wise."

It wasn't a long poem, and when he stopped, Maria stirred. "Tell me again?" she asked. After the first repetition she requested it once more, and then a fourth time. Maria was in the same stage of mental development as young children reading the same book over and over. Mrs. Wilson had said something about the anticipation of the coming words being a crucial step in developing the capacity for long-term memory. And besides being more than willing to do anything that helped Maria build brainpower, Dom didn't mind repeating the poem because it had often gone round and round in his head in those lonely hours when he had been trying to sleep in a half-empty bed.

"Music I heard with you was more than music..." he began again. He recited the poem in a continuous loop until he was sure she was asleep.

Each time he left out the two lines that had disturbed him the most:

"Now that I am without you, all is desolate,  
All that was once so beautiful is dead."

The poem didn't need them anymore. Neither did Dom.

**# # #**

*** Trying to avoid our universe's cultural and scientific references has really been cramping my style, so I give up. I'll try to avoid major historical stuff, but some things are too deeply ingrained to sound natural when they're cut out.**

**** I found a reference in the books that says Maria went missing about five years after E-Day. I thought she disappeared soon after the Hammer strikes, but I guess not. [sigh] Another timeline update in the making.**

***** The poem is "Music I Heard" by Conrad Aiken. I am not a huge poetry fan, but I do have a few favorites.**


	48. 30 weeks before E Day: 1400 Dom

30 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Ephyra, 1400 hours]

"Look over there, Maria. There's a new T-O-Y store." Dom spelled it because although Sylvie could only speak single words so far she understood very well what "toy store" meant. It meant her doting father would be buying her a new dolly or teddy.

"N-O," Maria spelled out for him. "We came here to get new shoes for you, not T-O-Y-S for the kids." She nodded toward the badly scuffed loafers on his feet. The toes were starting to come away from the soles. "I'm not letting you walk around in those one more day."

Dom peered around the bouncing toddler on his lap. "They're not so bad. We can just take them to a cobbler."

Maria tried another tactic. "Dom, I am starting to get weird looks from the other army wives."

He turned slightly toward her on the mall bench. "Why? Are they bothering you? What for?"

"They're not bothering me, honey, and no one has said anything. But at the last unit picnic I could tell they were wondering why the kids and I always have nice new things and you're walking around in shoes and clothing that are obviously past their prime." She put her hand on his knee. "It makes me look like a selfish wife who's draining her husband dry."

Dom looked mortified. "I never thought of it like that."

Maria saw a fountain of colors out of the corner of her eye. She raised her voice to Bennie, who was playing in the ball pit in the middle of the children's arcade. "Benito," she called, "don't throw the balls outside the pit, darling, otherwise you won't have any left to play with!" At three years old, Benedicto still had trouble saying his full name, but he wanted to be called something more mature, "like the big boys" so they'd compromised on "Benito".

"Yes, Mama!"

Dom raised his voice too. "And...?"

"And I'm sorry, Mama!"

Dom nodded approvingly. "That's better." Bennie glowed with happiness. His father's approval meant the world to him. He copied everything Dom did, right down to the way he held his knife and fork. He thought his papa was a hero (true), totally invincible (not as true), and had a super-secret spy job where he went around cutting off bad guys' heads with a sword (Dom had to nip that one in the bud before Bennie's fantasy got completely out of control).

"So?" Maria asked, not about to let their conversation get sidetracked. "What are we going to do right after this?" Dom pouted outrageously and gave her the Kicked-Puppy-Dog-Eyes. Maria was unmoved. "Dom..."

He sighed theatrically. "All right. Fine."

She arched an eyebrow. Dom had a way of squirming out of things he didn't want to do unless she had a specific promise from his own lips.

"All right," he conceded. "After this we are going to buy new shoes."

She squinted at him. When it came to things like spending money on himself, Dom could be as evasive as a lawyer. "For whom?"

"For me."

She though of something else. "And they can't be sandals, tennis shoes or anything cheap. They have to cost at least fifty dollars." She nudged him. "Now say it."

Dom pouted again. "After this we're going to buy shoes for me that cost at least fifty dollars."

Maria smiled at him fondly and stroked the hair at the nape of his neck. "Thank you, sweetie. It'll make me feel much better."

He used his pouting lips to kiss her on the mouth. "Well, if it makes you happy, of course I'll do it."

That was practically Dom's mantra. He was the most selfless man she'd ever known, up to and including Marcus. She studied his profile for a bit as he watched over their firstborn just in case the ball pit was concealing some hidden danger Bennie's nearly-invincible hero father could swoop in and rescue him from. Soon Dom noticed that her eyes hadn't left him in some time. He turned back to her with that sweet, questioning smile. "What?"

Maria felt so contented and safe she could have fallen asleep right there on his shoulder. The words were halfway out of her mouth before she realized it. "I have sown my love so wide that he will find it everywhere," she recited. Dom's eyes crinkled at the corners. It was one of his favorites, so Maria decided to go with it. She ran her hand through his curly hair again. "It will embrace him in the night, it will enfold him in the air." Her fingers traced over his cheekbone and along his clean-shaven jaw. He always shaved when he was sleeping at home because certain activities they enjoyed were not enhanced by whisker burn. "I set my shadow in his sight and winged it with desire; that it might be a cloud by day, and in the night a shaft of fire." She snagged his chin and pulled him close for another kiss.

While his face was still close to hers, Dom covered Sylvie's ears and said with a lusty grin, "I'll show _you_ 'a shaft of fire'. Rowr."

Maria laughed so loudly that some of the other parents in the arcade looked around to see what was so funny. "Maybe later, babe."

He wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Definitely later."

"_If _you get the shoes."

"Heck, I'll buy shoes every day if that's my reward."

"I'll remember that the next time we come to the mall."

Dom inspected his outfit. "Come to think of it, I could probably use jeans without holes in the knees."

Maria giggled. "Save that for next week."

Dom let his face fall pitifully. "After tonight I have to wait a whole week?"

"For jeans: yes. For sweet, sweet lovin': no."

"Oh, good. You had me worried for a second."

Dom kissed her once more before extracting their son from the ball pit and choosing a fifty-dollar pair of shoes in record time.

**# # #**

**The poem is "After Parting" by Sara Teasdale.**


	49. EDay plus 14 years 37 weeks: 2555 Marcus

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base, 2555 hours]

Marcus looked at the battered clock next to Anya's bed. Almost midnight. Since she was asleep, Marcus allowed himself an exasperated sigh.

This was the part he loathed: leaving her bed after a glorious evening in her arms. He turned his head to look at her elegant profile. It had to be done, but it never got any easier, even after seventeen years of practice, minus four in the Slab. He couldn't stay and subject her to the inevitable fallout from his stolen moments with her.

Being with Anya was like an antidote to every bit of shittiness that had ever happened. It was as if she created an envelope of alternate reality around herself that Marcus was allowed into when he was in bed with her. Within the envelope—within Anya—there was no war. There never had been; Pendulum, Locust or otherwise. Inside the Anya reality no one ever died. No one was wounded or lost limbs, and certainly no one he cared about ever got their skulls sawed open and their memories ripped out. When he was near enough to her skin, The Blue Room still existed. When he held her hard against himself, Haldane Hall was still an architectural marvel in the heart of the pristine East Barricade Academy. And when he was within her, everyone important to him was still alive.

Marcus had known from the beginning that he wasn't what she needed in a man. But every time he'd resolved to let her go, he found himself right back at her door. She was like a drug he couldn't give up. Trying to snuff out his desire for her only intensified his addiction to unbearable levels. If he went long enough between "fixes" he even developed classic withdrawal symptoms: inability to concentrate, loss of appetite, insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, paranoia, the whole package. Sometimes he even had auditory hallucinations where he imagined her calling his name from far away.

He needed contact with Anya to be a functional soldier. He needed her to be a functional human being. Knowing she didn't need him with the same intensity only made his cravings for her worse. He had no hope of inspiring a similar hunger in her, and he dreaded the day when she found a better, more expressive man. Marcus knew that day would come sooner or later, and he kept an eye out for that future thief, but also he knew there was nothing he would do to stop a good man from taking her away.

Deep down Marcus knew what Anya wanted; he just couldn't give it to her. Deep down he knew she wanted a home, and a family, and a husband who would say romantic things to her like Dom did to Maria.

Deep down Marcus cursed himself as a coward.

He had no fear of death, and only a healthy aversion to pain. He threw himself into every firefight with a will to win, preferring to spearhead any attack because he would be more likely to take damage than anyone behind him, and Marcus knew he could disconnect himself from the pain of injury better than anyone else. He was utterly confident that losing a limb or an eye—even being paralyzed—would not destroy him because Marcus lived mostly inside his head, in the memory palace. It was a place he could spend the rest of his life if he were bedridden, a place he would be happy to remain in all day, every day. Marcus only grounded himself in the present because he could do something to protect the ones he cared about. He could do something to atone for his failings.

But with Anya, with Dom and Maria, even with Carlos and his own parents, Marcus had never had the courage to let anyone truly know him. He could be the ideal Marcus Fenix in his memory palace and a reasonable facsimile in the real world, but in the dark well that held his true self, he knew what he really was.

Someone who belonged in the Slab.

The real Marcus had a beast of a temper, a burning hatred for people who betrayed him, an arrogance about his intelligence, a thirst for bloody violence, a rage at being abandoned, a greediness for valuable things, a ferocious sexual appetite and an inability to feel compassion for those he didn't respect. He had no idea how such a morally deficient person as himself had come from Adam and Elain Fenix. He'd often wished they'd had another child so he wouldn't have to be the only legacy they left behind.

It was sheer luck that the only crimes he'd committed so far had been treason and desertion. Everyone thought it must have been horrible to serve four years in the most brutal maximum security prison on Sera, but the truth was that Marcus had never felt more at home than he did in that hellhole. For the first time in his life he hadn't had to keep up the exhausting pretense of being the virtuous son of two such incredible people. He could be what he was and no one thought it was strange.

That was why he never wanted to talk about his time in the Slab: because he missed it.

When he was with Anya, though...

With Anya he was a good person.

For the few hours they spent alone in her bed, he was gentle, kind, patient, generous, compassionate and as sweet-tempered as Dom. She radiated every kind of virtue and her hands purified his skin wherever she touched him. Marcus didn't want to think about what kind of person he would have become without her influence these past seventeen years. His mother had left him, Carlos had been murdered, his father had died and Dom had been consumed with finding Maria. When he had reluctantly been "rescued" from the Slab, Anya had been his anchor, the only barrier between Marcus and the havoc he could wreak upon the world.

'_Twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.  
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  
Slouches toward the holy city to be born?'*_

When he'd first heard his mother quote those lines, Marcus thought she was talking about him.

He dressed hastily and left without looking at Anya.

**# # #**

*** A slightly tweaked verse from "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats**

**It seemed fitting that Dom and Maria would like love poems and Marcus would fixate on the apocalyptic ones.**


	50. E Day plus 14 years 37 weeks: 0605 Baird

E-Day plus 14 years, 37 weeks

[Vectes Naval Base, 0605 hours]

Baird had been too late to get his housing assignment last night. He'd carried his bedroll to the gym to find a place on the floor, but one look at the twitching sea of snoring, farting, noisy nightmare-having soldiers convinced him he'd rather sleep on the moldy couch in the workshop one more night. But if he wanted an actual bed and pillow for the foreseeable future and not a squeaky old cot, he'd have to get his senior NCO housing assignment.

So here he was at the admin office, bright and early. Actually, it wasn't even bright, just early: he'd gotten up before dawn so he could get this shit over with before Sharon arrived at the shop. Baird really, really wanted a look at the insides of that sonic shotgun.

It was so early that he didn't even give the housing clerk a hard time for taking so long to find his paperwork. He focused his blurry eyes on the room number and bunkmate information.

"Ah, shit." Baird threw his head back in exasperation.

The admin clerk looked up. "Something wrong, Corporal?"

"Yeah, there's something wrong." Baird brandished the paper with his bunk assignment on it. "Why do I get stuck with Holt and Innerman again?"

"Well, let me see..." The clerk flipped through a binder with the housing allotment details. His finger traced down the page. "Ah, yes, here it is." He smirked as he read the comment section. "They are the only two people who've never requested different quarters after being billeted with you. Guess you haven't managed to piss off absolutely everyone." He gave Baird a laughing-at-you-not-with-you smile. "Better put that on your to-do list."

"Screw you, Banfield."

"Well, now you can cross off my name, jackass."

Baird gave him the finger and stalked off to the barracks. Holt and Innerman were already there. Yay.

"Baird!" Innerman actually looked glad to see him. Or at least not disgusted. "We were wondering when you'd show up. Coming to breakfast?"

Baird would rather eat dirt all by himself than breakfast with these two jokers, but he refrained from saying so out loud. Having bunkmates who didn't hate his guts wasn't so bad, now that he'd actually experienced it. "Maybe later."

Holt nodded like that was sage wisdom. Then he put on what Baird gathered was his serious face. "Hey, man, listen. We just wanted to say we're really sorry about your boyfriend dying." They turned to leave.

Baird grabbed them by their collars and yanked them back into the room, their arms pinwheeling comically. He was too furious to laugh, though. Baird shoved them to the back wall of the room like he was lining them up for a firing squad. "My _WHAT?"_

Innerman and Holt looked at each other. "Well, back at Port Farrall you kept calling out in your sleep for somebody named Aaron. You seemed pretty upset that he was gone."

'_Aaron? Who the hell is ... oh.'_ People who talked in their sleep often left out parts of words, especially sibilants. He pointed at Innerman with his left hand and Holt with his right.

"Listen carefully, dipshits: _Sharon_. Can you spell it with me? S-H-A-R-O-N. Sharon. A _woman_."

Holt's face lit up with comprehension. "Oh! Oh, that's a big relief. It kind of felt like we were sharing our quarters with a girl for a while."

"Yeah!" Innerman added enthusiastically. "Now I can go back to changing my clothes in here instead of a lavatory stall."

Holt cocked his head. "Wait, are you talking about Sharon Keller?"

"No. My Sharon is dead." Figuratively speaking, that was true. He'd even made a funeral pyre out of her abandoned possessions.

"Ah. Well then, we're really sorry about your girlfriend dying." Holt and Innerman didn't look convinced at all. Before he could threaten them with disembowelment, they ducked under his arms and bolted out the door. Probably to go gossip to everybody and their dog about his "dead" girlfriend.

Baird sighed_. 'I guess it's slightly better than having dudes inch away from me in the showers. I wondered why they were doing that.'_ At least the news of his "crush" on Sharon Keller would spread just as fast as a _'Did you know Baird is gay?'_ rumor.

He went down to the administration office to tell them he was going to move his bed frame and mattress to the disused office over the workshop and they could assign some other poor bastard to share a room with Holt and Innerman.

"May I ask why?" the same cheeky admin clerk requested.

'_Turnabout is fair play,'_ Baird decided.

"Yeah. Turns out they're life partners and they'd rather be alone." He suppressed a nasty snigger.

Homosexual relationships weren't forbidden in the COG military, but they weren't that common these days. With the human species dwindling rapidly, some gene-deep survival instinct had kicked in that overrode sexual preferences in favor of reproduction, especially while under the influence of alcohol. Of course, drunken cheating wasn't exclusive to homosexuals; when the population had dropped below the 500,000 mark there had been a rash of adulterous affairs and surprise pregnancies, even a few murder-suicides. The military did have regulations against adultery, and Hoffman had started enforcing those rules vigorously, hoping to stave off the breakdown of the family unit. The COG could not afford to have married couples splitting up when the human race desperately needed them to keep having and raising children.

Fortunately for Baird's revenge, this clerk looked like the gossiping type. Sure enough, as soon as Baird was halfway out the door he heard the guy stage-whisper to someone in an adjoining room, "Did you know Holt and Innerman are a gay couple?"

Baird bit his lips to keep from laughing. _'Baird, 1; Nosy bastards, 0.'_


	51. E Day plus 14 years 37 weeks: 0620 Dom

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base, 0620 hours]

Dom woke to the sound of Maria crying.

He leapt out of bed so fast that the quilt tangled around his right ankle and he nearly fell. His guns had been Maria-proofed like the rest of the apartment, which meant they had trigger locks. The key was hidden and he couldn't remember where, so he dashed out into the main room, ready to tear the offender apart with his bare hands.

There was no one in the room. No one in the kitchen, either. He could still hear her crying.

"Maria? Maria, are you in the bathroom?" He went over to the door.

"Yes." Dom heard her sniffling.

"Are you hurt?"

"Nooo," she wailed.

"Can I come in?"

"Yes," she said more quietly.

Dom opened the door cautiously. Sure enough, she was naked in the shower. But Dom felt shock instead of lust.

Her lovely back, bottom and legs were criss-crossed with short, thick scars, the kind made by a liberally applied whip.

Dom wanted to go back to the mainland, track down every last Grub and have them drawn and quartered. Preferably after being burned at the stake.

Maria was completely dry, never having turned on the water. She hunched over something in her hands.

"Maria, can I open the shower door?"

Her _yes_ was so soft he almost didn't hear it. Dom stepped into the shower behind her. Maria was holding the dry bar of soap in both hands. Dom put a hand on her frail shoulder.

"Sweetheart, what's wrong?"

She started crying again. "I can't remember." She showed him the bar of soap. "I can't remember how it works. I knew how to do it yesterday, but now I don't know how anymore." Sobs started to punctuate her breathing. "I lost the memory. I lost it."

"Shhh, honey. It's okay to not remember." She gulped back her sobs, looking up at him with an expression that was half hope and half despair. "It's my job to remember things for both of us," he assured her.

Maria hiccuped. "Why?"

"Because we're married. We are basically one person, and if I remember something, that means you remember too."

Another hiccup, but fewer tears. "Really?"

"Really. Do you want me to show you what we remember about soap?"

She sniffled. "Yes, please."

"Okay." Dom took off his undershirt but left his boxers on. They were black and wouldn't be too revealing. He closed the shower door behind them and flipped on the water, turning the shower head so it was pointing off to the side. It was a tight fit with both of them, but they had enough room for Dom to show her how to wet the soap. "Then you rub it between your hands until it makes bubbles. And then you put the bubbles on yourself where you want to be clean."

Maria furrowed her brow in concentration. She spoke each step out loud as she did it. "We wet the soap. We rub it in our hands until it makes bubbles. We put the bubbles on us where we want to be clean." Maria repeated the sequence until it looked like she was wearing a bathing suit made out of cotton balls. Dom scooped some off her arms and put it in her hair.

"Here, I'll wash your hair this morning, and you can try doing it by yourself tomorrow. And if you don't remember, I will remember for both of us." Maria leaned her head back as Dom massaged the soap into her hair. When he judged there was enough lather, he cupped the back of her head and put her cheek against his chest and redirected the stream of water. He covered the side of her face with his hand so the soap wouldn't wash into her eyes. Maria turned her face so he could do the same on the other side.

She looked down between them. Pressing against him had transferred some of the foam to Dom. "You stole my bubbles," she said disapprovingly.

"I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean—" Dom noticed Maria's suppressed smile. "Hey," Dom said. "Are you messing with me?"

She giggled. "Maaaybe."

Dom smiled for her. "No, not maybe, you are. You definitely are." He dipped a finger into the poof of foam on her shoulder and dabbed it on her nose. Her eyes crossed trying to look at it.

"My nose isn't dirty."

"Says who?"

She focused on him and grinned. "Says me."

"Well, we should wash it anyway, just to be sure. And we might as well do the rest." Maria screwed her eyes shut and Dom gave her a poor man's facial. He gathered water in his cupped hands and poured it over her face until all the soap was gone. Maria blinked the water off her eyelashes.

"Now you," she said.

"Me? Are you calling me dirty?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, if you say so." Dom kept his eyes closed while she did his face and hair. He felt proud when she remembered to redirect the water to fall on his head and wash away the soap. "All done? Can I open my eyes?"

"I guess so," she said reluctantly.

"Do you want to turn the water off yourself?"

"Okay." Dom maneuvered so she could reach the tap. She squinted at it like a final exam and reached out slowly. She rested her hand on the lever. Dom could see she was concentrating on what he had done to turn it on, and working out how to do the opposite. Finally she flipped the lever up. The water stopped. Maria squealed and clapped her hands for herself.

Dom clapped too. "Good job, honey!"

"Don?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"Can you help me dress too? I have trouble with zipping up."

"Sure, honey, I can help."

Dom toweled her off and followed her to the bedroom, then wrapped the terry cloth around his waist and surreptitiously took off his wet boxers underneath it and put on a dry pair. He put on his shirt while Maria picked out one of her three outfits. She chose the one with jeans, so Dom put on his pants first and demonstrated how to work the zipper. "See, you make sure the two sides are close enough and then pull up on the tab until you get to the top. Then you button the button."

Maria giggled. "Button the button. That's silly. It's like saying 'cook the cooking'. Why don't they have a different word for buttoning?"

"I can't remember." Dom picked up the linen for binding her chest.

She put on her pretend scowl. "Hey! Not remembering is _my_ job." That was the second joke she'd made that day, after the bubble theft.

Dom laughed as he ran the strip of fabric around her torso. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"Better not. Can we eat now?"

"Yup. Do you want some eggs and a peach?" He secured the linen with a clip.

"Ooo, I love peaches! Let's have those!" Maria slipped on her long-sleeved shirt.

"And some tea, sweetheart?"

She balanced with one hand on his shoulder while he knelt to put on her socks. "Yes, and some tea. Do we have sugar?" Maria had always had a sweet tooth.

"A little bit."

"Do you want sugar too?"

"No," Dom lied. "I like my tea plain." He would also reuse her teabag instead of getting a new one so he could make their small stash last longer. "You can have my sugar."

He and Maria ate breakfast while waiting for Marcus to show up at 0800 and accompany them to the schoolhouse. There were fifty thousand people crammed into a base built for forty thousand, so the elementary, middle and high schools doubled as lodging during the night. But now that it looked like they might have a future, people were more than happy to bundle up their things and stow them away so the kids could have somewhere to learn. There were a surprising number of former teachers in the COG population. Dom thought their survival might have something to do with an instructor's need to pass on knowledge. People could find the will to live in the smallest things, especially things that had to do with raising the next generation.

Marcus was escorting them to the elementary school because he liked to be around Maria as much as possible. Dom was pretty sure it was because Marcus needed to reassure himself that she was real. Marcus had lost so many people: his mother and father, Carlos, and countless soldiers under his command. And this was the first time he'd gotten one back. Occasionally Dom would catch him looking at Maria with something like wonder, as if he still had trouble believing they'd found her. Hell, Dom himself was surprised every morning he opened his eyes and saw her lying at his side. He'd often spend several minutes just watching her sleep before he woke her up.

They ambled slowly through the base to the schoolhouse near the rec center (also temporary housing), having about fifteen minutes to themselves before dropping her off. Maria liked to walk between them with her hands in the crooks of their elbows as if they were an honor guard. She was one of the few people Marcus allowed to touch him for more than a second or two. He'd always regarded her as a sister, and he was especially tolerant of her hugging now that she was so childlike. Marcus was surprisingly good with little kids. Dom figured it was something about young children being guileless and non-judgmental.

When they dropped her off at Mrs. Wilson's classroom at 0815, she hugged Marcus briefly. "Goodbye, Mark. Will you be here after school?"

Marcus wasn't a hugger, but he did pat her back. "I'll try, Maria."

"Oh, good." She turned to Dom and hugged him around the neck. "See you later, Don?"

"Count on it, honey."

"Okay!" Maria gave him a brief peck on the lips and went into the classroom without looking back.

Dom stood there frozen. After a few seconds he turned stiffly to Marcus, whose eyebrows were raised almost imperceptibly. Dom pointed at his mouth. "Did you see that?" he asked. "She kissed me. She kissed me on the lips!" It was their first kiss since they had be reunited.

The corner of Marcus's mouth might have lifted a little bit. "Yeah, Dom, she sure did."

Dom stared through the open door at his wife. "She kissed me," he repeated. "I can't believe it."

"Believe it. I saw the whole thing." Marcus sounded a little amused. "Come on, Dom, we have to report for duty. There's a missing trawler we've got to look for. You can come back later and maybe she'll kiss you again." He pulled on Dom's sleeve.

Dom let Marcus tug him along the hallway until he couldn't see Maria anymore, and then finally started looking were he was going. "She kissed me," he said softly to himself.

He went out on the _Chancellor_ with Marcus and Cole at 0845, looking for _Harvest, _the missing trawler. Baird was having the time of his life toodling around underneath them on his very first submarine ride. The crew of the _Clement_ probably had their hands full keeping him from pushing random buttons and sneaking into the torpedo bay.

Even with several other boats on the surface, a submarine below and a Raven circling overhead, they still weren't having any luck finding the missing vessel. Then after about an hour of running the search grid around _Harvest_'s last known position, the chopper pilots spotted an overturned hull. When the patrol boat pulled alongside it was obvious they weren't going to find any of the crew still alive. Dom would have felt the usual sadness over the loss of life, but he still had a buzz from Maria's kiss.

They'd suspected it might be a Leviathan until they saw the bullet holes in the composite hull. Stranded jumped to the top of the short suspect list. Marcus volunteered to dive under it in the unlikely event that there was an air pocket harboring survivors, but the NCOG coxswain Muller nixed that heroic offer and just turned it over with a boat hook. It was only a small charred piece of the large boat's hull. The CO of the _Clement_ reported a lot of random debris on the ocean floor, but nothing recognizable as belonging to _Harvest_.

The chances of finding any live crew floating in the vast ocean were next to nothing. The submarine and helicopter stayed a while longer looking for bodies. The patrol boat carried the three Delta members back to the base as they speculated on why the hell Stranded would have sunk the boat instead of stealing it. There was no sense in breaking something valuable that couldn't be replaced. They were still tossing ideas back and forth when they pulled into port.

It wasn't until Dom was on dry land again that he realized he'd showered naked with Maria, put on her "bra" and even been kissed by her, but hadn't thought about sex once. Of course, becoming aware of that made him start thinking about sex again. It was sort of like realizing you're humble: as soon as you've noticed it, you're not truly humble anymore. Dom knew that "blue balls" wasn't an actual physical condition, just a state of mind. (It was also a guilt trip teenage boys used to trick their dates into having sex with them. Dom loathed that kind of behavior.) Dom had become an expert on sexual frustration over the past seven weeks. It seemed that teaching Maria was a state of mind that could temporarily dampen his lust for her.

Oh, well, at least now he knew controlling himself was possible. That was a step in the right direction. Dom started thinking about ways he could expand on Maria's school lessons at home, and the hot, sweaty thoughts faded into the background.

For now.


	52. EDay plus 14 years 37 weeks: 0710 Marcus

**WARNING!: This is the kind of chapter you can't un-read. So if you're a sensitive soul, you might consider skipping it. No, really. It's bad.  
**

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base: 0710 hours]

_Marcus is in bed with Anya again, this time in a white stone pavilion that looks out on the turquoise ocean surrounding their tiny island. Thick gauzy curtains ripple lazily in the archways._

_Anya lies on the white satin sheets like a diamond necklace on display. Her eyes are soft with affection as she runs her long fingers through his hair. Marcus wriggles down her body a little so he can lay a trail of wet, sucking kisses down her sternum. She giggles when he goes across to the narrowest part of her waist, just below the floating ribs. Anya is terribly ticklish there._

_Marcus slides his hands under her buttocks and lifts her slightly as he continues down the front of her silky thigh to her knee. He starts back up the inside of her leg and her hands tighten in his hair. Her breathing comes faster the higher he gets and the tender skin quivers under his lips._

_"Please, Marcus," she pants, tipping her head back in ecstasy as he nears the goal. "Oh, please, Marcus."_

_While she is distracted, Marcus sinks his mouthful of fangs into her flesh and bites down hard._

_Anya screams bloody murder, which is appropriate because he doesn't intend to let her live. Femoral arteries have the highest pressure of any blood vessel. Jets of scarlet splatter Anya's stomach and limbs as she claws at his face in panic. She can't do any damage to his Locust-like skin, though, so he keeps his jaws locked on her thigh like a crocodile. Blood is pumping out all over his face and shoulders, staining the white sheets a surprisingly bright red. He swallows the blood that spurts into his mouth and finds that he enjoys the coppery tang._

_Her whimpers are becoming weaker very quickly. It doesn't take very long to bleed out from a wound like this. "Marcus," she pleads in a whisper. "Why are you doing this?" Her mewling is extremely erotic to him, and he finds himself becoming aroused again._

_Marcus's tough skin softens into its human texture again and his teeth reshape themselves more bluntly. The flow from her thigh has slowed to a trickle because most of it is either dripping down the sides of the saturated bed or covering the two of them in ruby-colored streaks. He positions himself over Anya and licks the blood off his lips. Then he leans down and whispers the truth in her delicate ear._

_"Because it's fun."_

_Anya whimpers once more and then her eyes go glassy in death. Marcus kisses her rapidly cooling mouth. "You feel so good," he says, and licks his lips again as he eases into his dead lover._

Marcus sat bolt upright in bed, noxious bile rising in the back of his throat. He swiped desperately at his mouth with both hands. It was a good thing none of his roommates were there to see him in this state because he was also sobbing silently like he had while collecting the various pieces of Carlos to put in the body bag.

Marcus realized he was rocking back and forth and damn near hyperventilating, so he forced himself to sit cross-legged and breathe only through his nose.

When he could finally look at his shaking hands, they were devoid of blood. He couldn't taste any in his mouth either.

"Oh, thank God," he said truthfully, relieved beyond belief to find it was just a nightmare. Well, not exactly "just" a nightmare; this was one of the worst he'd ever had. They weren't usually so bad that he nearly threw up. Probably it was his mind rejecting the imaginary blood in his stomach.

He always experienced night terrors after making love to Anya. The more he enjoyed his time with her, the worse the dream was. He'd learned his lesson after the first time he'd slept with her: the vision he'd had when he returned to his father's house had been the kind of nightmare that haunts you for weeks afterward. In it he'd drowned Carlos in a lake while Anya stood behind him and laughed.

Marcus shakily rolled up his sweat-soaked blanket and put it at the foot of his bed. He'd go wash it after he'd pulled himself together. He hoped he could get it done before anyone came back. The last thing the army's morale needed was the "hero" Marcus Fenix having a breakdown.

He sat with his legs over the side of his bed and used the only counter-measure he had against these torturous dreams: his memory palace.

_Marcus races out of the thick fog and up the steps of Haldane Hall. He reaches for one of the double doors and it opens before he can touch it. Anya is standing there in her gray and black Control uniform, smiling joyfully. Marcus pauses on the stoop and puts his hands on his knees while he catches his breath. "You're okay," he gasps._

_Anya smiles even wider. "Of course I'm okay. You, however, are late. Come inside before you catch your death of cold." She takes one of his freezing hands in her own warm one and leads him through the foyer to the evening salon. Dom and Carlos are sitting at the octagonal table in front of a fireplace that's big enough to roast a pig on a spit. The brothers are shuffling the decks for four-handed cribbage._

_"Hey, man," Carlos jokes, "did your manicure go into overtime or something?"_

_"Yeah, Marcus," Dom adds. "I told you to skip the facial, but did you listen? Nooo."_

_They laugh at their own jokes, like they always do._

_Anya giggles. "I think he ran through the fog the whole way here. Trust Marcus to be late because he won't use the car service." She snaps her fingers and suddenly the fireplace is filled with flame. "Take the seat with its back to the fire, Marcus. It'll warm you up."_

_She takes a step toward her own chair, but he catches her arm and pulls her back to him. Marcus touches his forehead to hers and whispers, "I'm so glad you're here, Anya."_

_She kisses him tenderly on the mouth. "I'm glad I'm here too, darling." She steps back coyly and holds both of his hands at arm's length. "Now let's show the Santiagos how this game is won."_

By the end of the game Marcus is composed enough to go out the front doors into the real world.

He opened his eyes again, still alone in his quarters. He indulged in a final shaky sigh before getting up to dress and take care of the soaked blanket. Marcus had long ago resigned himself to the fact that he would have to live with these night terrors. Many Gears did. But he considered them lucky: they only dreamed of their loved ones dying.

Marcus dreamed that he killed them. And worse, he dreamed that he enjoyed it.

**# # #**

**Just FYI, writing Marcus's nightmare scared the crap out of me.  
I hope it doesn't give us bad dreams.  
**


	53. EDay plus 14 years 37 weeks: 0945 Marcus

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base, 0945 hours]

Anya wasn't sure if she was feeling pissed off, hurt, depressed or confused, but she was definitely brimming with some strong emotion.

Marcus had come to her Vectes quarters for the first time last night. It had been amazing. Not as earth-shattering as the night of their date (Anya still got the shivers when she thought about it), but amazing nonetheless. Marcus always made love to her as though he had saved up every scrap of emotion and shred of desire he hadn't shown her in public since the last time. If she went by last night, he'd been feeling quite a lot of both lately.

Anya never had to worry about not getting enough foreplay with Marcus; he treated it as though it were the main event and actual sex was a delightful but unexpected encore. Sometimes when she was hanging out in all-female company the women complained about "minute-men" and how they jumped straight from kissing to sex. Even if their relationship had been public, Anya wouldn't have told them how Marcus sometimes took so long that she had to ask him to advance to the next stage. She wouldn't have said anything because she didn't want any more women giving Marcus the eye than there already were.

Marcus had been long gone when she woke up, but she was used to that. She was also used to him being a little cold the next day. Marcus had a definite cycle of emotion: after sex it was like he'd spent all the feeling that he had and he needed the next couple of weeks to stock up again.

No, that wasn't the problem. The problem was how he'd acted this morning. She'd felt so close to him last night: he'd looked at her so intensely; he'd undressed her so tenderly that she almost couldn't take it; and he'd lingered afterward for so long that she fell asleep thinking, _'Maybe he'll stay this time'._

Then this morning he wouldn't even look at her. He didn't acknowledge her presence once and he always found something else to focus on when she stepped into his line of sight. It wasn't just that he was ignoring her, because he did that sometimes. This morning he actually seemed quietly furious, as if she'd done something unforgivable and he was ex-communicating her.

Or maybe this was just him breaking off their affair.

She'd risked a court-martial for him. She'd given him the best years of her life. She'd been prepared to wait out his forty-year prison sentence just for the chance to be in his arms again at the ripe old age of seventy-one. And now it looked like he was dumping her. Probably for some hot young thing who wanted to have bragging rights about banging Marcus Fenix, the larger-than-life hero from the Battle of Aspho Fields, the Lightmass Offensive, the Landown Assault and the Sinking of Jacinto. Anya wanted to find out who this woman was so she could bitch-slap her into next week.

Anya clapped a hand over her mouth at that thought, as if she'd cursed out loud. She almost never swore, even in her head. Not that she'd learned propriety from her mother: Helena could peel bark off a tree with her cussing alone. No, Anya just found that if she saved swearing for when she really needed to communicate her displeasure, people took what she said more seriously. And being a pretty blonde woman in the army meant she had to work hard at being taken seriously. What's in the mind eventually comes out the mouth, so Anya rarely thought in cuss words.

Bernie noticed the movement of her hand. She raised an eyebrow. "You all right, Anya?"

They were walking the line of Stranded refugees with a robot taking head shots; mug shots, if anyone turned out to have a criminal record with the COG. It was mostly women, children and the elderly taking advantage of Prescott's amnesty offer, but that still made over six hundred people. It was also incredibly boring because the line moved so slowly and nothing interesting had happened all morning.

"Yeah," Anya answered. "Yeah. I'm fine, I just remembered some paperwork I completely forgot to file. Now I'll have to wait another week for the requisition to get processed." She felt a twinge of guilt at lying to someone she respected as much as Bernie, but there was absolutely no one she could talk to about her relationship with Marcus. Well, there was Dom, but what Anya really needed was a woman's perspective.

Rumor had it that Hoffman had dropped Bernie like a sack of bricks when they were young and he married a very proper lady doctor instead. Anya would like very much to know if the Colonel had had the same look on his face back then as Marcus was wearing now. But instead she had to lie. For the zillionth time she wished Hoffman would think to lift the ban on fraternization within the ranks now that the population had shrunk so much. Not that she and Marcus would have been able to have children anyway.

Maybe that was it. Maybe Marcus was feeling the male version of a ticking biological clock. He was the last Fenix on the planet, and if he died the family name died with him. It was entirely possible that he'd had an epiphany last night that great sex meant very little when it couldn't produce an heir.

Anya was saved from any more torturous self-doubt when Sharon showed up with a bunch of bloodhounds and their handlers. She waved at them from a respectful distance, as if she didn't particularly want to mix with the Stranded crowd. Anya couldn't blame her: the smell of stale booze and unwashed groin was quite strong. She hoped it wouldn't stick to her clothes.

"Let's go see what she's up to," Bernie said.

"Hallelujah," Anya mumbled under her breath.

Sharon wasn't quite as perky as usual. She kept looking over their shoulders at the four lines of refugees as if she expected one to produce a firebomb at any moment. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to let the dogs look them over."

Bernie tilted her head. She had a comfortable rapport with the naturally affectionate bloodhounds. "What for? I doubt any of the little old ladies are hiding Locust under their skirts." Her friendly grin showed she meant it as a joke instead of an insult. She needn't have worried, though: Sharon was a hard person to offend. Unless your name was Baird.

"Well," Sharon said, "believe it or not, some of them are sensitive enough to pick up on bad intentions."

Bernie looked confused but not yet skeptical. "Bad intentions?"

"Yes. They can smell something on a person who means to do harm. Probably some kind of stress chemical or electrical build-up, maybe even muscle tension leading up to violence. However they do it, they are never wrong."

"Wait, wait, wait." Bernie did look a little disbelieving now. "You're telling me these dogs can _smell evil?"_

Sharon shook her head. "Nothing so mystical as that. It's like those service dogs people used to have that could sense when an epileptic was going to have a seizure. Some could even sniff out cancerous cells. I'm working on a way to detect how these dogs do it, but I'm certain it will turn out to be purely scientific." She clapped her hands together. "So. Want to try it?"

Bernie looked at Anya. Anya shrugged. "Why the heck not? If we don't get a little variety here I'm going to fall asleep on my feet. We'll assign two Gears to each handler and they can walk the lines for a while."

"Shiny!" Sharon said, back to her cheerful self. She turned to the handlers. "It's a go!" she called. All of them beamed. Clearly they loved showing off their animals' skills.

Anya went to explain to Hoffman and Michaelson what the dogs were doing. All of them agreed there was no harm in trying. The dogs had proved to be completely docile and trustworthy. Bernie had complained that Hoffman liked them better than Mac. Hoffman hadn't denied it.

It was hard to be inconspicuous with three people and a huge dog doing a sniff search down each line, but the bloodhounds were so dopey-looking and wagged their tails so hard that a few Stranded even petted them as they went by.

When the dog sniffing the farthest line got about a quarter of the way through his task, he let out a bellowing howl that made everyone on the parade ground jump, even the Colonel. A man took off for the closed gates.

"Runner!" hollered a Gear, unslinging his rifle.

The would-be escapee was quick and strong and he would have made it over the top before any Gears could get to him, but all five bloodhounds had torn loose from their handlers and made it to him before he could get halfway up.

The hound who had scented him was so big it only had to stand up on its hind legs to grab him by the pant leg. The runner cursed at it and kicked, so another bloodhound caught his other pant leg. The crowd of Stranded had backed away in a wide semicircle. The three other dogs were feinting charges at the man on the gates, baying and barking so much that the smaller children covered their ears and started to cry.

Finally one of the handlers pushed through the crowd to the gates. Anya, who was still working her way through the crush of people along with Bernie, Hoffman and the other Gears, was expecting him to call them off, but instead the handler yelled, "PULL!"

The dogs on the man's legs lowered themselves on their haunches and tugged hard, digging their claws into the hard dirt. People were yelling now, demanding the Gears do something. The runner lost his grip on the wrought iron gates and landed hard on his chest. When Anya's group got there, he was still wheezing like he'd had the wind knocked out of him.

The two bloodhounds on his legs still had mouthfuls of fabric, and the other three were making a tremendous amount of noise, but none were snapping at the man so Hoffman let them be until he had used the toe of his boot to turn the man over onto his back. He waved at the handler, who yelled, "RALLY!" The dogs cut off in mid-bark, which startled the crowd just as much as when they had first started. They went trotting back to their handlers and got a round of ear scratches and effusive praise._  
_

The runner had gotten his most of his breath back and just looked mightily pissed off. Until Bernie pressed her way to the front of the Gears. Then his face went completely white. Bernie's face tightened until Anya thought she could see the bones underneath. Bernie turned her head to Hoffman without breaking eye contact with the silent runner.

"Now I've got the whole set," was all she said.

Hoffman didn't even ask what she meant. "Throw him in the stockade," he ordered, pointing out four Gears. That in itself raised a few eyebrows. Four veteran Gears guarding one skinny Stranded was clearly overkill. But no one was going to ask questions after the scene the dogs had made. People were giving the hounds a wide berth now, even though they were back to their usual goofy selves.

Two Gears hauled the man up by his elbows. "You're throwing _me_ in jail?" the runner shouted. He couldn't move his hands because the Gears had them pinned behind his back, but he jerked his chin at Bernie. "She's the one who should be behind bars. That bitch killed my buddies! She cut them up, man. She took her time doing it! So where's your frakking amnesty now? Where's your justice? Because it sure as shit wasn't self-defense, not coming back to slit them up weeks later!"

Hoffman signaled for the four Gears to take the man to the guard room for interrogation. "Get him out of here."

The prisoner was yelling now. "I want a trial—I want a frakking _trial_! The bitch is a _murderer_!" His voice became too muffled to understand as soon as they took him inside the building, but he was obviously still yelling.

Anya looked to Bernie, whose face was still set like stone. Sharon stood at her side, not asking any questions, just staring at where the prisoner had gone. Without taking her eyes off the door he'd gone through Bernie told Sharon, "I don't care what the science says: those dogs really can sense evil."

**# # # **

**If you were one of the first to read the last chapter, I changed it a little bit. I wasn't quite happy with Marcus's reaction to the nightmare.**


	54. E Day plus 14 years 37 weeks: 1500 Baird

**There was a bit of a mix-up with this chapter and Marcus's nightmare. Here is the correct chapter. Sorry for the confusion.**

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 37 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base, 1500 hours]

It had been a colossal waste of the COG's time searching for bits of _Harvest_ or its crew, but Baird didn't mind because the _Clement_ submariners let him fix a whole bunch of things. And as if that weren't enough reward in itself, they showed him how just about everything in the control room worked and even geared him up in one of the EVA suits.

The _Clement_ crew didn't know Baird's reputation for being a jackass. There were no rolled eyes when he entered a compartment, no pre-emptive sarcasm, no "accidental" jostling, and they even laughed at his engineering jokes. He had to admit that was kind of nice, although he didn't expect it to last. Sooner or later he'd say or do something that was over the line and it would be _Goodbye and good riddance, asshole_. So he enjoyed himself while he could.

Of course Sharon was there on the jetty when they pulled into the small vessels basin. She had her hands clasped together and was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. As soon as the captain was off the sub she skipped over to him like a little schoolgirl and said, "Me, me, me! Me next! Pleeease?" As Baird predicted, the submariners thought she was adorable and a few volunteered to take her down for a tour.

Baird rolled his eyes. It seemed this was another thing that hadn't changed about Sharon: she knew exactly how cute to be in order to get what she wanted. Apparently she still remembered how to work that ass, too: the sub was the rounded kind where you had to climb up rungs on all fours to get to the sail. There was a good deal of ass-admiring from the sailors on the jetty, and a few murmured comments that began with _Man, I'd like to get my hands on that and _[fill in the blank with something crude]. Baird ground his teeth, a leftover reflex from the days when she'd been his. Back then he would have started a brawl right then and there but now it wasn't his problem anymore. '_Let Sharon fend off the squids' wandering tentacles herself.'_

He'd wanted to stay and have a look at the outside of the sub too, but the open hatch funneled Sharon's flirtatious and admiring comments outside and he definitely wasn't going to stick around and listen to her be a shameless hussy with a bunch of lusty sailors. Obviously whoring herself out was a hard habit to break.

Sharon had ordered DENIS to go with him so he could have some alone time with his long-lost robot. Baird could have sworn the bot followed him reluctantly. _'Great,'_ he thought, _'even machines get simulated crushes on Sharon. Faaan-tastic'._

His mood lifted considerably when he got back to the shop. DENIS set himself down on the workbench and released the catches on all his access panels like a patient opening his mouth wide for a dentist. Each of the slightly curved pentagonal panels could swing open on his frame or be completely removed for better access to his innards. He was hunched down on his backward-jointed legs that ended in toes much like a chicken's foot: three in the front and one in the back. Originally he'd had six wheels on three axles, but after the anti-grav had been installed the robot didn't need to negotiate terrain anymore. The legs were the same titanium ones they'd installed seventeen years ago; in fact, everything inside DENIS that wasn't a tech upgrade hadn't been changed at all. Even the teal panels were the originals, which meant Baird's and Sharon's engraved initials were staring him in the face every time he went around to DENIS's right side. Finally he took the panel off and put it face down on the bench.

It was obviously Sharon's tendency to anthropomorphize machines that made her keep so many of the original parts. If you changed out too many bits of a robot, eventually it was an entirely new creation. Machines were beautiful, fascinating, ingenious feats of engineering, but they most definitely did not have personal preferences. The closest computer scientists had ever gotten to an artificial intelligence was a massive program that required enough parallel-processing supercomputers to fill up an airplane hangar. DENIS had three little solid-state hard drives the size of postage stamps. They were Sharon's design, of course, but Baird had built them, so he knew without a doubt that they weren't capable of spontaneously creating a sentient mind.

After a few hours of happy tinkering, Sharon came back to the shop humming under her breath. She gave him a friendly nod and immediately dove back into her most recent project. Sharon wouldn't tell him exactly what she was making; just that it was another crowd-control device. Right now it was a rat's nest of wires and tubing so tangled that he couldn't even guess at what the final product would look like.

She was still humming to herself, probably very pleased with the effect she'd had on the all-male submarine crew. When she turned away from him to rummage in her personal tool chest, he snuck a peek at her rear. Huh. He'd expected her jeans to be covered in greasy handprints, but there was just one streak low on her hip, the kind you got from brushing by something that had recently been oiled.

Then it happened. Sharon kept searching in the tool chest with one hand, and the other nudged her shirt up to scratch an itch on her back. It was just a few inches of bare flesh, but it was enough to make Baird remember _kneeling behind her with a hand on each of her naked hips, kissing and licking his way up her bare spine—_

Suddenly Baird was very, very excited, and not in the touring-a-submarine kind of way. The combination of pent-up energy and the flashback equaled his pants getting tighter by the second.

"Oh, shit," he said under his breath. It had been a couple of months since he'd had enough time and privacy to fantasize about Sharon in the usual way. And even if he had, it would have felt weird with her so close by, like she was watching him or something.

Baird's eidetic memory meant he didn't even have to touch himself to get off, he could just re-live one of his secret hours with her in vivid detail. He could see her, feel her, touch her, taste her, _hear her making those helpless little sounds that meant she wanted him to_—

'_Shit, shit, shit! I gotta get out of here before she notices.'_ He looked around his workstation desperately and his gaze lit on a pile of dirty old bath towels that they were using as oversize rags. Baird scooped them up and made sure he held them so they reached halfway down his thighs.

"Going to wash these rags," he called over his shoulder as he walked quickly toward the side door. "Be back later."

"Okay." From the timbre of Sharon's voice he could tell she hadn't even turned around to look.

Baird speed-walked to the nearest lavatory block and practically kicked the door open. He went around the corner of the line of toilets and urinals into the shower room and was relieved to find there were only a few guys in there. He picked the showerhead farthest away from the other men, dumped the pile of rags on the long wooden bench and held on to the cleanest one as if he were going to use it to scrub down while he bathed. Being seen in the men's locker room with a party in his pants would not help with dispelling the whole _Myth of the Gay Baird_ thing.

He turned the handle as far to cold as it would go, then kicked off his boots and stepped into the chilly spray fully dressed. A guy lathering up farther down the line gave him a weird look when he felt the cold mist coming from Baird's shower. "You know we have warm water now, right?" he asked. It wasn't at all uncommon for Gears start a shower still wearing their clothes; it blunted the cold and got their washing done at the same time.

Of course Baird knew they had warm water now: he was the one who'd fixed the boiler. He pulled his goggles over his eyes and leaned back against the tiled wall. "Yup," he confirmed. "Don't need it."

"Huh. I guess it can be hard to get used to the little luxuries again." The soldier switched hands to lather his other armpit and the bar of soap squirted out of his grip and landed right in front of Baird.

The Gear stared at him with wide eyes. It was clear he was weighing the loss of his monthly soap allotment against the risk of bending over in front of Baird. Apparently the _Not gay, just madly in love with Sharon Keller_ rumor hadn't made it around to this guy yet.

Baird had had enough of this. He kicked the soap back over.

"Bitch, please. You're not pretty enough to get with me." He tilted his head back against the wall and let the cold water soothe his body back to normal.

**# # #**


	55. 31 weeks before E Day: 2500 Baird

31 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Halvo Bay, 2500 hours]

"Are you sure we should be spending money like this?" Sharon asked as she pulled into a parking space on the far side of the Montecinto Royale's parking lot. This particular casino didn't have a valet, which was why they'd picked it: they wouldn't be noticed in a busy casino restaurant, but a nosy valet might gossip about a young couple who scanned the patrons for people they knew before entering.

"Absolutely sure. This is the first of many restaurant dinners we'll be having," he confidently declared. The royalties from the anti-grav upgrade they'd created would be more than enough to get their life started. Damon had been saving money from fixing electronics for students and teachers in order to take Sharon out for a real date, just the two of them. They had planned to do it just before her birthday, but he'd decided it couldn't wait two weeks. She needed a pick-me-up right now.

Last week her family had been robbed of most of the money they had in investments, but unless something else catastrophic happened they'd be fine. Her father would have to curb his yacht-buying habit, but they would be able to keep their comfortable lifestyle. And besides, Damon would be eighteen in three and a half months. The plan had always been to elope and make their own money; who frigging cared if they got disowned? All that mattered was being together.

The fifteen weeks counting down to his own birthday were crawling by, especially now that they had both graduated from high school. It was traditional to take a year off to "see the world" before going to a fancy university, and it wouldn't seem strange to anyone that spoiled brats like Damon and Sharon and James were dragging their feet about choosing a continent to hike across. James's family was up there in the top one percent of the rich, so people would assume they were debating whether to brave the wind and rain and razor hail or just lie on a beach on the Kellers' private island.

As they got out of the car, Damon continued. "We're going to be middle class! Middle class, I say!" He mimed throwing wads of cash in the air and letting it rain down on him. Then he ran around to her side of the car and swept her up in a waltz. Damon's mother had gotten it into her head that he would be attending a lot of fancy society balls when he got older, so he was forced to take ballroom dancing lessons. He could have refused and just taken his lumps from Jocelin for a couple of weeks, but Sharon decided to sign up too. Damon had made sure to step on every girl's toes except Sharon's so he would be assigned as her dance partner.

"We're going to eat macaroni and cheese casseroles that we make ourselves instead of that horrible escargot shit!" He whirled her down the rows of cars in an elaborate box step. "We're going to wear fake leather coats that don't get ruined when it rains!" Sharon laughed, the centrifugal force of their dance making her brown hair stream out behind her like a flag. "We're going to live in a house so small that you don't lose stuff because you can't remember which drawing room you put it in!" Sharon snorted. She'd had to buy the same magnifying glass four times because she lost each of the others within a week. "We're going to buy cars that have regular paint jobs that don't cost five thousand dollars to fix one little scratch!" That particular excess that had really made Damon steam because it had happened the same week his parents refused to give him his meager allowance for some stupid reason. Sharon and James had had to go on the school ski trip without him.

Damon slowed down to a much more sedate pace, a little out of breath from talking and dancing at the same time. "We're going to have a dog that's a mutt from the pound instead of an inbred prima donna with a name as long as my arm."

"Everything sounds perfect," Sharon giggled. Then her face softened into an expression that was almost sad. "That's all I've ever wanted."

He slowed to a stop. "Me too." Sharon stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. He was tilting his head to kiss her when he saw a very familiar shape over Sharon's shoulder.

"Ah, shit." Damon rolled his head in irritation.

"What?"

He pointed out a flashy convertible. "That's my dad's favorite car right there. He's in here somewhere. Let's go."

She resisted when he pulled on her wrist. She was squinting at the car with that look on her face that usually meant something was about to blow up. "I've got a score to settle with Jocelin Baird." She grinned devilishly at the convertible. "Wait here."

Damon smiled slowly at her. "What are you planning to do?"

She gestured toward the loading bay for a nearby home-improvement store. "I'm going in. You be the lookout." She patted her leg. "Come on, DENIS." DENIS put down the window and floated out of Sharon's car with his new ultra-quiet hover system.

He could see where this was going. "I like the way you think, lady."

She tossed her hair theatrically and strutted off toward the loading bay. Damon scanned the parking lot and street for witnesses, but it was 2500 hours on a weeknight. All the regular folks were at home, and all the gamblers like his father were inside the casinos. Besides, DENIS would be disabling all nearby security systems and erasing surveillance footage. No one would know they had ever been there.

Damon heard the door for the loading bay go up. _'What the—?'_ He'd thought she was just going to get a two-by-four or a hammer to smash windows with. He was not prepared for a mechanical loader to lumber out of the bay with Sharon inside it. "Oh my God." He started to laugh. "Seriously?"

She gave him a brilliant, wicked smile. "Seriously. Stand back, sugar, and let the girls show you how it's done."

Still laughing, Damon backed away from his father's car. "After you, sweetheart." The loader was high-quality, so although its servos whined and its heavy footfalls made the asphalt shake, it still wasn't loud enough to be heard inside the noisy casino.

Sharon pulled back the loader's arms and thrust them straight through the driver and passenger doors of the convertible with a terrible screeching of metal. No curious heads poked out of windows or doorways. The ringing and blaring of the bells and whistles and thumping music in the casino drowned it out.

Damon stared up his magnificent girlfriend in her giant yellow exoskeleton. "I love you," he said.

She winked at him. "Damn right you do."

When she pulled the loader's arms out, the front and back seats were ruined along with the doors. She lifted one of the loader's arms like she was going to swat a fly and brought it down on the windshield. The safety glass popped out of the frame and shattered all over the hood like crushed ice. Sharon pursed her lips in thought. "Should I punch through the hood?" she asked.

"No! Not the engine!" The idea of ruining a 700-horsepower V-12 engine was horrifying. The car's body could be rebuilt, but not an engine like that.

She nodded. "You're right; not the engine." She skewered the trunk of the car with both of the loader's hands. She missed the gas tank on purpose but hit the oil pan. Thick black liquid began pooling under the ruined car.

Damon looked at his father's pride and joy and laughed so hard that he started wheezing. "He's going to shit a brick when he sees this!" he gasped.

Sharon pointed one of the loader's arms accusingly at the ruined convertible. "That's what you get for hurting my fiancé," she told it as though she were scolding Jocelin himself. "We should probably do a couple other cars too, so it looks like random vandalism. I don't want to make him suspect you."

"Ladies first." He gestured grandly toward a row of ridiculously expensive automobiles. Sharon smashed her way through half a dozen cars and then paused over a plain blue one.

"This one's not fancy."

He came closer for a look. "No, you're right. Somebody loves this car. Somebody not rich."

"Well, I think that's enough excitement for one night." Sharon untangled herself from the loader, which was streaked with various colors of car paint and had wires and curls of metal dangling from its hands like party streamers. "No point in putting this back. They'll figure out soon enough."

Damon climbed up and wiped off her fingerprints with the tail of his shirt. When he hopped back down she kissed him gently on the cheek. "I wouldn't have thought of that. You're so clever."

"Damn right I am." He kissed her back. "Now let's beat feet before we get our asses thrown in jail."


	56. EDay plus 14 years 39 weeks: 0650 Marcus

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 39 WEEKS*

[CNV _Falconer_: southwest of Vectes, 0650 hours]

After six hours of pounding across the ocean waves at full throttle and another fifty minutes of drifting lazily in a mist so thick that it hid the horizon, Dom expected Cole to be crouched over a bucket or hanging his head over the side of the patrol boat. But no, here he came out of the wheelhouse, grinning like a fool and munching on something from a small wax-paper bag.

"I don't get it," Dom said when Cole came to stand next to him. "You were sick as a dog when we went out on the _Chancellor_ a couple weeks ago. Is it because _Falconer_'s a bigger boat? Not as much roll to it?"

"Maybe I've just finally got my sea legs," Cole joked.

"I don't believe that for a second. You spent fifteen years riding in choppers almost every day and you never got used to it. This is your second boat ride and you're miraculously cured. You're even _eating_. C'mon, man, spill it."

"Ah, but the secret is _what_ I'm eating, son." Cole tilted the little bag so Dom could see inside. There were a bunch of blobs that looked like chips of encrusted amber. They didn't seem edible at all.

"What on Sera is _that_?" Cole was tough, but even he couldn't eat rocks.

"Crystallized ginger, baby."

"Ginger?"

"Yup. You cook ginger in sugar water until the crystals form and ta-da! Seasickness medicine."

"Seriously? Where did you get it?"

"Sharon gave it to me. I told her about my little problem—" Dom laughed with Cole at the absurd understatement "—and she got one of her people to make me a batch. Used up a lot of their sugar allotment, but by the time I found that out it was already made." Cole brandished his little bag like a magic wand. "Works like a charm. Want to try some?"

Dom looked inside again. The chunks hadn't gotten any more appealing. "Maybe later. I think I'm doing okay in the chuke department."

Cole rolled up the bag and tucked it in the space behind his breastplate. "It'll be here if you need it." He strolled off down the deck toward Bernie, whistling. For lack of anything better to do, Dom's eyes followed Cole's path and lit on Marcus** at the starboard machine gun.

Marcus had been acting strangely ever since they'd caught the third of the Stranded trio who had gang-raped Bernie a while back. Turned out Bernie had already caught the other two and tortured them to death. Dom knew for certain that Marcus disapproved of what she'd done, rapists or not. He also knew that if Marcus had caught them he'd have executed them himself. He might not have skinned them alive like Bernie did, but he sure as shit would have put a bullet in each of their brains. Personally, Dom would have saved the ammo and just used his Lancer's chainsaw.

Marcus had these strange double standards for himself: perfectly balanced pairs of Catch-22s that made him "damned if he did, and damned if he didn't". That was practically Marcus's motto. Dom had known him since he was eight and Marcus was ten, long enough to find out Marcus was like the proverbial Tar-Baby: everything bad seemed to stick to his conscience and attempts to remove it only made the situation worse. He didn't just carry the weight of his own misdeeds, which were few and far between, but that of every person he came in contact with. It didn't matter if he were present when something bad happened or if it was just some misdeed he'd heard about; other people's guilt attached itself to him like an irremovable parasite.

Hell, everyday life seemed to add to his burden: if he ate, he was taking food out of 2.5 other people's mouths. If he showered, he was wasting clean water that someone else wouldn't get to use. If he slept in a bed, it meant someone else was sleeping on the floor. He couldn't win.

No one would know from looking at his scarred, stone-faced façade, but Marcus was easily disturbed by the slightest things. For example, Carlos had loved horror movies, especially ones with zombies. When he and Marcus were about fourteen and Dom was twelve, Carlos had persuaded them to watch "Night of the Half Dead" during a sleepover. Dom and Carlos had laughed themselves sick at the ridiculous amounts of fake blood and cheesy zombie make-up. Marcus had woken up at 0300 screaming something about having attacked his zombified mother with an ax. After that Mom only let Carlos and Dom rent comedies when Marcus was coming over. Neither of them protested.

Dom didn't even want to calculate how many horror stories Marcus had heard during his four years in the Slab. Every one of them would have wriggled their tendrils deep into his mind and never let go. And the Slab had been no ordinary prison. Marcus had been penned in with the worst of the worst. Mass murderers, serial killers, torturers, necrophiliacs, child rapists, cannibals, you name it. No doubt those sick fraks had taken great pleasure in telling Marcus their crimes in painstaking detail. The scum of humanity never got tired of soiling others with their filth. The purer the victim, the better, and you couldn't get much purer than Marcus.

So Marcus was leaning on the _Falconer_'s machine gun as if he had the weight of the world bearing down on him. Probably brooding about Bernie's gory revenge, Jonn Massy's crime against her, the human rights violations of the Stranded pirates they were going to turn him over to, the COG's plan to follow the pirates back to their base of operations and wipe them out, and feeling like each one of them were a sin he had personally committed.

Dom could see Anya standing in the wheelhouse, just as worried about Marcus as he was. She'd been exceptionally quiet these past two weeks, watching Marcus very closely for any sign of a chink in his mental armor, any way to get in there and help him.

The only time there had been even the slightest crack in his defenses against Anya was the day the Embry Stars had been awarded for the Battle of Aspho Fields. That was the evening Marcus had been unguarded enough to fall in love with her. He had immediately clammed up the next day once the emotion of the moment had dimmed. Frankly, Dom was surprised they still had a sexual relationship. He'd fully expected Marcus to retreat completely within himself and never touch Anya again. But here they were seventeen years later, still completely faithful to each other. Dom was sure it was all due to Anya's persistence. She might be delicate and soft-spoken, but she had a cast-iron backbone and she was determined to have Marcus no matter how long she had to wait.

She was exactly the kind of woman Marcus deserved. Dom hoped now that the war was over something would break their stalemate. Marcus needed time and space to heal from his invisible war wounds, and there were plenty of both on Vectes. That is, if Dom could keep disturbances like these frigging Stranded pirates from interrupting his peace and quiet.

Getting justice for Bernie and ridding Vectes of its Stranded problems were only part of the reason Dom wanted to take over that starboard machine gun and shred the pirates to bits when they arrived. The other was that he didn't want any more blood on Marcus's hands, justified or otherwise.

Dom had no problem with vigilante justice and draconian punishments when it came to crimes against women and children. If anyone raised a hand to Maria he would personally disembowel them. If anyone hurt Anya he would be more than happy to dip them in boiling oil. And right now he was sorely tempted to go belowdecks and castrate Jonn Massy with a fork.

When Dom had left the storage compartment where they stashed Massy, he'd heard the dull thump of a groin punch followed by Massy gagging and Baird's low voice saying, "That's for Bernie, you piece of shit." Dom revised his opinion of Baird upward from "complete jackass" to just "antisocial dickhead". Maybe there was a real human being behind those goggles after all.

The coxswain Muller's voice called out, "Range three kilometers. We should have a visual on them soon."

Still disturbed by the COG's planned ambush, Marcus muttered, "And they're well within firing range, once I see them." Despite his reluctance to fight dirty, he settled himself in the shoulder braces of the gun, ready to take on the guilt and responsibility so that no one else had to.

Michaelson radioed Baird to bring Massy up to the wheelhouse. Dom picked up a lifejacket for the prisoner and offered to be the one to transfer him to the pirate vessel. There was no way he was letting Marcus go into a situation where he might have to shoot an unarmed prisoner if things went south. No frakking way.

**# # #**

*** I've set my story's timeline as having 40 weeks per year for simplicity's sake.**

**** Chapters are named after the person who is the main focus. Even though Dom is the narrator here, the chapter is named after Marcus because most of it is about him. Sometimes a chapter is about two people, but only one name will fit in the title.  
**


	57. E-Day plus 14 years 39 weeks: 0705 Baird

E-DAY plus 14 YEARS, 39 WEEKS

[CNV _Falconer_: southwest of Vectes, 0705]

Baird was proud of limiting himself to only punching Massy in the crotch once. The guy deserved to have the whole damn package cut off. No, burned off. Yeah, that would be more appropriate. If Michaelson didn't keep his promise to follow Massy's gang to their hideout and blow them to hell, Baird was going to hone his technique on the Captain instead.

Having Sharon around had brought back a lot of memories, mostly of being in bed with her, which Baird had considered sacred at the time. The idea of Massy taking something that was practically a holy rite and twisting it into a weapon of humiliation reminded him of those assholes in the Pendulum era who made "art" by smearing paintings of Mother Miriam* with cow dung. Not that Baird revered the Blessed Mother the way Dom did, but he could respect her as a symbol of purity.

He'd come to accept over the past couple of weeks that the fact that he'd loved "Young Sharon" wasn't going to change. His memories were too clear; unlike other people, he couldn't retroactively modify them to convince himself he'd never really cared that much about her. He'd stopped loving her when she married James, but there was no denying he'd been crazy about her from the ages of 8 to 18. And staring at the raping, murdering pile of steaming Brumak shit sitting across from him in _Falconer_'s hold made him realize if it had been Sharon instead of Bernie whom this waste of space had violated, Baird would already have presented her with Massy's head on a pike. Not because he cared about "Current Sharon", but in honor of the girl she had been. Sort of like how Gears took care of the families left behind by their fallen buddies.

Baird was having a great time employing COG psy-ops mind games on Massy. He kept a pleasantly neutral expression on his face while he spun the revolving cylinder of his Boltok pistol the way a night security guard might twiddle his thumbs. Every now and then he took a bullet out of its chamber, inspected it carefully, and put it back. Once in a while he would sigh and tap his feet, then look at Massy like he was bored enough to punch him in the balls again.

"You don't scare me," Massy had said after about two hours into the trip out to the neutral location. He couldn't gesture with his hands because they were zip-tied behind him, and another tie linked them to a pipe, so he jerked his chin at Baird.

"Oh yeah?" said Baird. "Then how come you pissed yourself?" He gestured at the stain on Massy's crotch.

"Because you sucker-punched me in the junk, asshole!"

Baird smirked. "Right. You just keep telling yourself that, Tinkletoes."

Baird elaborated on that theme for a while, which shut Massy up for the rest of the trip.

On the way to the prisoner handoff, Baird had nothing else to do but think about Sharon. Young Sharon, that is.

After a week he'd gotten so tired of taking cold showers several times a day that he developed his own countermeasure against the erotic flashbacks: he would bait-and-switch his mind with earlier memories of Sharon, ones from the more innocent days before they'd become sexually active. Baird could multitask so well that he was able to relive eidetic memories and carry out uncomplicated physical tasks at the same time. Right now he was watching Massy and also making sandcastles on a beach with twelve-year-old Sharon. He had thousands of pleasant childhood memories like that, more than enough to keep him entertained for the six hours it took to get to this specific point in the ocean and the additional hour they spent scouting the area for an ambush.

Finally he heard Michaelson's voice in his ear. "Corporal Baird. Bring Massy to the wheelhouse, please."

Baird flicked out the hunting knife he'd borrowed from Bernie. It had a nasty gutting hook that bent back from the tip for what Bernie called "unzipping", which worked on thick hide just like it sounded. It was the same knife she'd used on the other two rapists. Baird had already shared this little bit of trivia with Massy.

"Up and at 'em, piss-ant." He knelt on Massy's left thigh so he couldn't get up while Baird reached behind and cut the tie to the pipe. Baird had a good seventy pounds on Massy, and the sub-human hissed as Baird's weight crushed and separated the muscle fibers in his quadriceps. Then Baird pulled Massy up the steep little stairs by his hair.

"Sort of like leading a cow by its nose-ring," he explained to Anya as he shoved Massy down on the bench seat behind the helm. Massy stared at Anya with a leer like he was sizing her up for a future assault. Anya glared back. Baird cuffed Massy on the back of his head and said, "You're not allowed to look at her, asshole." Anya looked both grateful and uncomfortable. After that Massy kept his eyes on the boats drifting outside.

There were three boats visible in the mist, but no human activity to be seen. Through his earpiece Baird heard a crewman reporting floating debris to Michaelson. Then the Captain said, "Corporal Baird, walk Massy out on the foredeck. Perhaps they'll feel better if they eyeball him."

Baird man-handled the prisoner out to the foredeck and Massy called out for his "associates" to come get him. No response.

"Baird," Michaelson radioed, "ask him if he recognizes the vessels."

"Hey, shithead." Baird shook Massy by the grip he had on the man's collar. "Recognize those boats?"

"The two little ones, yeah. Not the big one."

Baird relayed this to Michaelson. Michaelson raised the submarine _Clement_, who reported pinging something weird that could be biological. But there was no way pirates could control a deep ocean Leviathan, so that was a puzzle they could figure out later.

Michaelson ordered the Falconer closer, and their lookout spotted signs of small arms fire on the main boat. Just as Michaelson and Anya raised their binoculars, a man appeared in the boat's wheelhouse and identified himself over the designated radio frequency as Darrel Jacques. He politely requested Massy be handed over.

The pirate who had originally demanded the return of Massy in exchange for leaving Vectes off their shopping list was named Cormick Allam.

When Baird followed Michaelson's instruction to ask Massy if he knew the name, the frakwit started thrashing in Baird's grip like a cat being lowered into a full bathtub. "You can't do that, man, he's gonna frigging kill me," Massy yelled. "No! Frak you, you can't _do_ that to me!"

Baird didn't need any more info than that to put the whole picture together. "In case you missed that," (which was unlikely at the volume that Massy had shouted it) he told Michaelson, "Jacques is from a rival gang. He's got plans for Massy for stiffing his guys over something. It sounds painful."

There was a lot of back-and-forth about how to play this new plot twist, and the _Clement_ was still reporting the unusual sonar signature. Massy started kicking Baird's shins and trying to bite him, which meant Baird had every right to sweep Massy's feet out from underneath him and slam him face-down on the deck. He put a knee in Massy's back, just hard enough that Massy could only draw enough breath to speak without yelling.

"You can't do this to me, asshole. You'll regret it. I got rights. And _friends_."

Baird put just a tad more weight on Massy. "Do you come with an off switch? Tell me where it is or I'll have to make one the hard way."

Dom said, "If he wants to swim for it, let him."

Sometimes Dom wasn't so bad. Baird decided to give him a little less shit the next time they were out on patrol.

Jacques's gunboat came within twenty meters of the _Falconer_. Baird hauled Massy to his feet.

It turned out that Cormick Allam was on the ship after all. At least for the thirty seconds before Jacques shot him in the head as "a token of our intent". Baird could tell Massy was maxing out on the terror meter because he went completely still and quiet as Jacques's men tipped the corpse overboard.

'_Come on,'_ Baird thought. _'Give us the satisfaction of seeing you shit yourself. On second thought, maybe not while you're so close to me.'_

Michaelson and Jacques agreed on a patently insincere cease-fire between the COG and his pirate gang while Marcus lowered the Marlin at the stern to take Massy over to Jacques. Bernie and Cole had come to the stern to watch. Massy struggled so much that Dom couldn't get the life-jacket on him, so he just tossed it aside. Baird got tired of Massy's cat-in-the-bath shit and just knuckle-punched him in the same pressure point Bernie had used on him back in Jacinto. Massy was stunned long enough for Baird to get him into the inflatable. Baird looked up and saw Bernie give him a nod that said, _See? It came in handy one day._ Cole put a hand on Bernie's back and she didn't shrug it off.

Massy bitched and moaned the whole way until Marcus said in that low, gravelly voice, "Can't help noticing you never denied you did it, Massy." Massy closed his frakking mouth.

They passed a headless body floating in the water and Baird didn't feel an ounce of sympathy. Dom sure did, if his expression was any indication. Marcus was probably singing a funeral dirge in his head for the scumbag. _'Waste of energy, guys. Save it for the real victims,'_ Baird thought.

The name on the big pirate boat's stern said _Trader V_. It was a nice rig Baird wouldn't have minded taking back to Vectes, but all Michaelson asked for in return was a gunboat so small it didn't even have a name. _'Better than nothing, though.'_

Baird shoved Massy up into the pirates' waiting arms. "You'll regret this, you assholes!" Massy yelled as a parting shot. _'How unoriginal. Enjoy your last cruise, frakker.'_ He felt like dusting off his hands.

The _Clement_'s Commander Garcia was getting his panties in a twist about the intermittent sonar contact again. Baird wasn't too worried about some deep sea creature, not with an attack submarine zooming about beneath him. Marcus and Dom stared mournfully at the bodies Baird dumped over the gunboat's side. _'You two look sadder than those droopy-faced bloodhounds,'_ he stopped himself from saying out loud.

By the time Baird had the gunboat secured to _Falconer_, Massy was clearly being given a warm welcome by Jacques and his gang. _'Yeah, scream, you jackass. Scream so Bernie can hear you.'_

The Gear in question was leaning against the rail at the stern with Cole at her side, listening to Massy sing out a repeating chorus of pleas for mercy. She still had hardly any expression on her face. Since Cole didn't look like he was going anywhere, Baird took up position on her other side.

"I'm not gloating," Bernie said, as much to herself as to them. "I'm just making sure I've still got the courage of my convictions."

"And then you leave it all behind you, right?" Cole asked. "Promise me."

"Yeah. I think I purged my anger a long time ago. But some things get to be habit."

'_Ain't that the truth,'_ Baird thought, reminded of how he'd had to go cold-turkey on fantasizing about Sharon. He was going to say something along the lines of _Go barbeque a few kitties and you'll feel right as rain_, but he decided that Cole was the better choice for comforting small talk. Coming from Baird it would sound like sarcasm. And now that Massy wasn't a threat anymore, Baird was all out of sarcasm for the moment.

Massy stopped wailing shortly before the _Falconer_ pulled out of earshot. Bernie looked ... well, not satisfied, just relieved. _'Score one for the good guys,'_ he thought.

He was feeling pretty good right up until Garcia's voice in his earpiece yelled, "Torpedo! _Brace, brace, brace!_" and a massive column of water jetted into the air half a klick away.

'_God, no! __Not the submarine!'_ The _Clement_ was their last sub, maybe the only sub left on Sera. He searched the water frantically with his binoculars.

No, the sub's radio mast was still visible where she had come up to hover just under the surface. But there was no _Trader V_ anymore.

"_Clement_, what the hell have you done?" Michaelson yelled through the radio, uncharacteristically peeved. "I said _follow_ her, not _sink_ her!"

Garcia denied having made the kill, which was even worse: it meant there was something else out there with torpedoes, something that didn't belong to the COG. Garcia summed it up: "Not ours. Time to worry."

Predictably, the remaining pirates were on the radio cussing up a storm and declaring the cease-fire over. Nobody could have given a bigger shit about that, not with a cannoned-up Leviathan or Stranded submarine circling them like a shark around a swimmer.

Then Garcia picked up the sound of something blowing its ballast tanks. Definitely a sub, then.

"You're clear to engage," Michaelson said.

Baird silently agreed when Garcia said, "We need to know what we're firing at first, Captain." Then Baird cursed himself for not fitting out _Falconer_ with hull sonar before this little trip.

'_My productivity's down twenty-five percent with a distraction like Sharon hanging around.'_ But he had to admit that without her where he could see her, the lack of food and sleep would have meant a decline of more like eighty percent. Maybe ninety.

He saw foam begin to bubble up just as Garcia said, "Something's surfacing. We've got a fix on it. About thirty degrees off your port quarter, range eight hundred meters. Standing by to fire torpedoes."

It seemed like everyone who wasn't at their action stations was pressing against Baird's back. When someone bumped him enough to make him lean over the rail he turned his head and snapped, "Back the frak up before I throw your ass overboard." The pressure disappeared, but Baird wasn't one to say _Thank you _for something that shouldn't have happened in the first place. _'Tossers,' _he cursed silently. It took him a second to realize that he must have picked that up from Bernie.

He went back to watching the naval drama unfolding off _Falconer_'s port side. "I see it. Look for the foam."

A heavily accented voice came over the radio. "_Clement_, this is _Zephyr_. We're surfacing. We're not hostile. Stand down."

Baird was suddenly very, very excited, and not in the seeing-Sharon's-bare-skin sort of way. '_Another submarine. Another submarine! There are two!_' He watched in awe as a black sail rose out of the sea.

When she bloomed to the surface like a rose dripping dew, he saw that _Zephyr _was smaller than _Clement_ and even more rounded. She was gorgeous in that petite brunette sort of way, in contrast to _Clement,_ the leggy blonde. The COG's longer, flatter sub surfaced as well, rising out of the sea like some fairy-tale mermaid. Baird's breath caught in his throat at the sight of them side by side.

"Holy shit!" Dom exclaimed. "They're breeding."

'_If only that were true.'_ He'd be the first to send them on their honeymoon with a big box of fertility drugs. A schematic for miniature subs started forming in his mind.

When he'd put that idea away for later, the foreign voice was saying, "—Trescu, Republic of Gorasnaya, Union of Independent Republics. It's been a long time. May we talk, _Falconer_?"

Baird started chuckling to himself. The perennial killjoy Marcus said, "I'm glad you find it so frakking funny. Because we just made a new bunch of enemies."

Baird handed the binoculars to the sour-faced prophet of doom and reminded him, "Shit, we were going to finish off Jacques and his gang anyway. At least we got another submarine and a gunboat out of the trip."

"You think Trescu is going to hand it over?"

Sometimes Marcus _could_ be as thick as he looked. "Why else would he surface and not just run?" That silenced Fenix the Party Pooper immediately. Baird liked him better when he was either totally silent or saying things like _Nothing but bits!_ and _Burn, bitch!_

Baird didn't have any jobs to do on the _Falconer_ now that Massy was history, so he stayed at the stern and watched the dazzling subs slice through the water behind the boat as they headed back to Vectes.

Another engineering wonder, following them home like a lost puppy. And not just any sub. An _Indie_ sub. From one of the holdout nations who refused to accept the cease-fire with the COG fifteen years ago. _'Sharon is going to flip her wig! A rogue sub full of Indies! It's like that drive-in movie we went to with Ja—' _

That sobered him up pretty quick. He was as quiet as Marcus for the rest of the journey.

**# # #**

*** I needed a Seran version of the Virgin Mary. Ta-da!**


	58. E-Day plus 15 years: 1055 Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS

[Vectes Naval Base, 1055 hours]

Marcus slapped one seal into his armor plate and twisted, then the other. The gel layer inflated and gave him that feeling he had never gotten 100% used to: the constricting sensation that was probably like getting squeezed by a boa constrictor. Marcus held his breath for the five seconds it took for the armor to adjust the pressure. In order to make a proper fit for breathing you had to keep your ribs expanded. Once the gel had stabilized itself, it was both comfortable and comforting to a Gear, but the inflation process always gave Marcus a spark of anxiety that the gel's expansion would keep going like a blood pressure cuff and suffocate him.

Now that it was done, the gel let him move and twist freely under the stiff armor. It provided a lot more mobility, regulated his skin temperature and cushioned falls and body-blows. Primitive gel layers had been used during the Pendulum Wars, but they hadn't had pressure feedback sensors that adjusted it to the individual shape of the Gear. The self-regulating gel had come along about three years into the Locust War. Marcus made a mental note to ask Sharon if she'd had anything to do with that. He had a feeling the answer would be yes.

After nearly two decades as a soldier Marcus could armor up in less than three minutes. Today it was taking more like five because he was having trouble concentrating and his hands were trembling slightly. After three weeks of avoiding Anya like he had the plague, the "withdrawal" symptoms were starting. He'd only slept two hours last night and this morning he wasn't hungry at all, which was practically unheard of in a fully-grown Gear. It was only going to get worse, and _Not looking forward to_ _that_ would have been an understatement. But for right now he had to power through it and get out to the bomb site where Bernie and Anya's Packhorse had been flipped clear over onto its roof by a Stranded road mine.

Today Marcus found himself agreeing with Baird about summary executions for Stranded terrorists. He was sure later he'd regret thinking that, but for right now the rage boiling up in him was making his hands shake even more.

He finally got his gear on and himself into the chopper. Baird was already in, along with one of the bloodhounds and its handler, Connor. Cole and Dom had patrol duty. Hoffman wanted them to eyeball what the Gorasni were up to in their brand-new tent city.

As KR-239 sped over the road to Pelruan, Baird didn't try to bait Marcus like he usually did. The corporal had been weirdly mellow lately. Jace had even asked if Baird was on drugs: "I saw him walking down the street last week, whistling. _Whistling_, Marcus! Dude's got to be high on something. You might want to keep an eye on him."

Cole's opinion was that Baird was finally doing something he liked. It was true that Hoffman had been using him more for engineering than active soldiering, and Baird was churning out fixed devices and repairing defunct machines around the base like a man on a mission. Marcus's private opinion was that he was trying to keep up with Sharon's inventiveness and increasing popularity. He might be able to pace her in the building of new machines and even surpass her in the repairing of the old ones, but he didn't have a chance in hell of being as beloved as Keller was. It must be hard seeing her stroll in and light up a room full of the same people who had groaned out loud when Baird arrived.

The bloodhound lying on the floor of the chopper yawned, displaying a gaping maw of huge teeth. Marcus twitched. The creature was the bravest of the nomad hounds, having been a true gun dog before Sharon adopted him. He actually liked loud noises and going places in rough-riding machines. Hoffman wanted to see if he could learn how to track Stranded by watching Mac. The problem with the bloodhounds was that most of them were very timid. Deerhounds like Mac had been bred to hunt and kill game; bloodhounds had been developed for tracking and cornering game. Connor had explained that the dog (Marcus refused to call him by his ridiculous name: Ding-Dong) could follow a trail over two days old, but would be useless in actually bringing down a man. For Mac, tracking was work. For the bloodhound, it was play.

Marcus still kept his finger close to the switch for the Lancer's chainsaw.

"Coming up on the bomb site," Sorotki informed them over the radio. Marcus sprang out of his seat and grasped a safety handle at the open door. There she was, about thirty yards away from the crater, standing next to Bernie and the overturned Packhorse. It seemed the bomb had been slightly delayed—thank God for that—and flipped the vehicle end over end instead of shredding it from underneath.

Baird was more concerned about the vehicle than his fellow Gears, protesting that the Stranded would strip the Packhorse if they left it there until Dizzy drove in the salvage rig. Typical. Anya (and Bernie) had nearly been killed or horribly maimed, and Baird was worrying about leaving a hunk of metal and bolts unguarded.

"Too bad," he told Baird as calmly as he could manage. "We'll just have to reclaim the shit when we catch up with them." Baird looked like he might actually stick his tongue out at Marcus. _'Asshole,'_ he thought.

When they landed, however, Baird hovered around Bernie like a mother hen, carrying things for her and clucking about hidden injuries. Each one he named hit Marcus like a slap. _Stroke. Perforated eardrums. Head injuries. Subdural hematomas. Delayed onset of cerebral swelling. Coma._ Any one of those things could have happened to Anya. Some of them couldn't be completely ruled out until Doctor Hayman had a look at her.

Somehow Marcus would have to get her in the Raven without touching her. Ever since his nightmare it felt like he left a sticky black residue on everything he handled. Even his shadow seemed to linger behind, marking a grimy trail between the places he'd been that day like one of Maria's connect-the-dots drawings. He had found himself surreptitiously watching the bloodhounds to see if they were following it.

He hadn't been able to look her in the eyes for weeks because _Anya whimpers once more and then her eyes go glassy in death _keeps flashing in front of him every time he tries. He was irrationally afraid if he looked her in the eyes that they would glaze over and she'd collapse like a puppet with its strings cut.

Marcus came as close to her as he dared and said, "Those need to go in the back compartment," gesturing to the fuel tanks in her hands.

"Okay, Marcus," Anya replied softly. Marcus had noticed she tried to work his name into their brief exchanges as much as possible. He stepped up into the Raven after her and as soon as she was inside the compartment he slid the door shut and jumped out.

"Sorotki?" he said quickly into his tac/com. "We're going after them. Get Lieutenant Stroud back to base."

Marcus heard Anya say, "Look, I'm fine. I should be out there with—" But the Raven had already lifted off. He inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Sorotki was a good man.

Unfortunately Baird had heard all of that, and he was smart enough to have put two and two together a long time ago. "Wow, harsh," he commented. "You won't be getting any for a _long_ time."

"Shut it," Marcus muttered without much heat.

Baird was right: Marcus wouldn't be "getting any" for a long time. In fact, last night he'd decided he wouldn't be getting any ever again.

He just had to figure out how to tell her.


	59. E-Day plus 15 years: 1130 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS

[Vectes Naval Base, 1130]

Donneld Mathieson was such a sweetheart. When he had radioed the workshop to say Damon and Marcus were needed to check out a bomb site, Sharon had insisted on going along to the CIC. Donneld was letting her hang around the Control Room to listen in on the radio transmissions and watch the live feed from JACK, as Hoffman had decided Sharon wasn't a security risk based on character references from Bernie and Damon. She liked the Colonel better every day.

Stranded bombs were definitely a cause for concern, especially since there were six hundred Stranded refugees inside VNB who had accepted Prescott's amnesty offer. If the Stranded who'd set the road mines were related, there could be sleeper agents within the base. The refugees outnumbered Sharon's people two-to-one, and they could be a serious threat to the rest of the COG as well.

Sharon had seen their jungle-warfare style of fighting up close and personal, and many of Sharon's nomads were ex-slaves from Stranded gangs. Some Stranded were just unlucky people who'd gotten caught outside the Ephyran plateau during the Hammer strikes. (Like Dizzy and his girls; Sharon had a soft spot for the truly adorable Dizzy and his even more adorable twins.) But just as many Stranded were the kind of brutal bastards who would use their own people as suicide bombers. Sharon avoided the Stranded refugees as much as she could; anyone who could light a fuse or pull a trigger was a potential terrorist, even the children. It had happened before. She'd been there to see the bloody results.

Samantha Byrne had located an unexploded roadside bomb and Lieutenant Stroud and Bernie had been going to assist when another bomb flipped their Packhorse and nearly killed them. Where there were two bombs, there could be more. Donneld (as Mathieson said she should call him) had offered her a seat next to him, but she hadn't been able to stay in it for more than five minutes. She was pacing behind the lieutenant as unobtrusively as she could. Damon was out there, strolling around on a road that could be packed full of more mines. Her mind's eye kept projecting images of James disintegrating in a blast of dirt and gore. If the same thing happened to Damon...

Sharon hated living in denial, so she would just have to admit it: there was enough of "Real Damon" left in 'Baird, Corporal D. S.' for her to want him to be safe. They were only little flashes of his old self: the tilt of his head when he was deep in concentration; the way he could still finish her sentences; the unique pattern of soldering he used to make circuit boards. But they were enough that the question she'd asked herself the first night in Port Farrall had been answered: she didn't hate him, and she definitely didn't wish him dead.

Sharon had not forgotten that Damon nearly killed James fifteen years ago. Damon had always had a short fuse due to his "disciplined" upbringing and the perfect-storm combination of Baird and Lytton genes. But he'd never been in such a powder keg of stress before. If _Sharon_ had nearly lost it during those horrible months of being slowly ripped away from him, then the more volatile Damon couldn't have been expected to keep it together.

'_He stole my frakking life!'_

He'd said that her first day on Vectes, but because of the sheer volume and venom with which he'd said it, her first reaction had been to flinch, and his irritated response to her movement had started an argument. The possible interpretations of his yelled statement hadn't occurred to her until later: it could have meant that the "life" in question was Sharon, Sharon and DENIS, or just DENIS. Given the way he'd been treating her, so distant and sarcastic, the last option was the most likely. He certainly spent a lot of time tinkering with DENIS and giving her looks like she'd tampered with the robot too much.

Now he was out there in what might be a minefield with only JACK as mechanized backup. Sharon had wanted to send KEDAR and SEPDI with him, but Donneld had convinced her that Hoffman wouldn't be a fan of that idea. "He doesn't even trust JACK one hundred percent," the lieutenant had said. Then he'd winked at her. "The older generation, you know."

Every time Damon walked out of the robot's field of view Sharon found herself craning her neck as if she could peek around the frame like a window. JACK's video feed was a little unsteady. That meant his anti-grav thrusters needed an overhaul, but Damon wouldn't let her touch the COG robot. He claimed she wasn't authorized to work on classified government projects. When she'd reminded him that she was the one who'd designed the anti-grav upgrade and the cloaking system, he'd brushed her off with some mumbled nonsense about operational security. Sharon was pretty sure he just didn't want her touching his things. Damon had a hard enough time loaning her his tools, much less his pet robot. Probably because she'd taken DENIS with her when she left him. Not deliberately, of course, but he wouldn't see it that way. Damon didn't see anything her way when it came to the whole mess with James.

'_God, poor James.'_ Sharon had to brace herself on the back of an empty chair for a moment. The grief for her husband still blindsided her sometimes. The episodes of stabbing pain and regret became fewer and farther between with every year that passed, but that didn't mean they were any less intense.

Her grief for Grace was different: it was a gaping hole in her very self that could never be filled; constant and unrelenting, like a low hum that you can't find the source of. There was a bond between mother and child like an invisible tether: the "apron strings" in that old adage. Their tether had never had the chance to dissolve naturally as Grace grew into an adult. Instead it was viciously torn in half, and Sharon went about her life with the reminder of her dead child constantly trailing behind her.

With James, though... Her mourning for James had two facets. One was pure loss: She missed his laugh, his stupid puns, the way his cowlick always stood up in the morning, the fact that he could eat the same thing every day and never get bored, the way he had been completely wrapped around his baby girl's finger, and a hundred other details of sweet, gentle James.

The other facet was pure guilt: He'd been a devoted husband, a loving father, a staunch protector of his family. James had been such an incredible human being. Such a beautiful soul. And yet Sharon had never loved him.

She had no room in her heart for another man. All that space was taken up by the boy she'd known and loved in her youth. Even while married to James, it had been _her_ Damon that she wanted, _her_ Damon that she needed. It would continue to be Damon. First, last, and always.

If Sharon was going to discover whether this new person still carried her Damon inside him, she had to keep "Baird" alive long enough to find out.

One after another, the speakers around the Control Room crackled to life.

Bombs were going off all over the island.

**# # #**

**PLEASE NOTE: I am going on a two-week vacation in a few days. Fear not! I shall continue to write (seriously, I can't stop; it's like I have an incurable fever), but I don't know when I will be able to upload the chapters. It may turn out quite sporadic: one chapter, then a break of a few days, followed by several chapters all at once. So sign up for the story alerts if you don't want to miss anything! And keep re-reading your favorite chapters: the stats let me know which ones are the most popular.**


	60. E-Day plus 15 years: 1200 Dom

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS

[Vectes Naval Base, 1200 hours]

Mary heard a big boom. The kids in her class went all quiet and looked out the windows without getting up. Misses Will-Son went to the window and looked. "It's far away," she said. "We'll stay put for now." Mary tried to go back to building a tower of color blocks with her friend Susie. She really liked Susie, but the booming sound had made her a little scared, and when she was scared Mary always wanted to be with that man she liked.

Mary looked around for him just in case he had come early. She had trouble remembering a lot of things, but not the man. And things like his hair. It was so fuzzy and curly, like a ... a ... sheep, but very short. And he had some on his face too, around the edges and on his chin. She liked his eyes very much. They were big and dark like ... like ... coffee. Yes. His eyes were coffee-color. The man had shared some coffee with her once. She hadn't liked it very much until he put sugar in it, and some milk. Then it was okay. The man's eyes looked like coffee with no milk.

What was his name? Mary had such a hard time with names. And most people had more than one. Like Donny. No, that wasn't what Mark called him. Mark called him ... Don. Yes. Don. There was a longer way to say Don's name too, but it wouldn't stay in her head. "In one ear and out the other," she had heard Beard say a few times. He wasn't talking about her any of those times, but they were short words and they made sense, so they stayed.

Don called her something longer, too. It sounded funny, but he liked to say it, so she didn't tell him to stop. What was it he called her? Oh, yes. "Mary-Ah". Don said it was her "first" name. She kept forgetting how many names she had. It was hard enough to remember that Mary-Ah was her name too. Don said it was okay to not remember. He said he could remember for both of them.

Don remembered a lot of things for Mary. She learned things, and a lot of times she knew them for a while and then one day they were gone. It made her very unhappy to forget, but Don never got unhappy with her for forgetting. He said it made him happy to teach her all over again, and then she was happy because he was happy. She knew he wasn't doing the lying-thing about it because his eyes got all warm, like hot coffee. Coffee with sugar. One day she'd touched his mouth with hers and he'd tasted like tea with sugar. She tried it again the next day and he tasted like sugar and peaches. Now she kissed him every time he took her to school because he tasted a little different each day, like sugar and something else.

Misses Will-Son told her the mouth-touching was called "kissing", and that Mary was allowed to do it with Don because they were mary'd. Misses Will-Son also said that lots of other men and women pairs were mary'd, but everyone called it the same thing, not the woman's name plus a 'd'. But it was the only way she could remember the word, so it was okay. Don said so, and he knew lots of things, so Mary trusted him to know this thing. Don said because they were mary'd that he was called her ... her ... something that started with an 'h'. Hub? No, that was too short. Wife? No, that was for women because it had a 'w' at the start. Mary was a wife. She was Don's wife. She liked telling people she was Don's wife. Everyone smiled when she said it.

She wanted Don to come through the door. He always had a cute little frown on his face when he was looking for her. His eyes got bigger and the skin between his eyebrows got wrinkly. When Don saw her he smiled very big. She liked his teeth too. They were very white and all the right size. He smiled a lot, especially when he laughed. Mary liked it when he laughed because it made her insides feel good.

A lot of things about Don made Mary feel good. His laugh, and his hair and his coffee-color eyes. And his white teeth and the way he always tasted like sugar. She liked how big he was, too. Lots of men Don worked with were big, but they didn't make her feel safe like he did. Some of the big men were scary-looking. At first the kids in her class said Mark was scary-looking, but Mary didn't think so. She told the kids how nice he was and they started to like him too. That made Mary feel good because Mark didn't frown so much when the kids waved hello to him.

Don only frowned when he was looking for her at school. He or Mark or Sharon or one of Sharon's traveling friends took her home every day, but Mary liked it best when Don took her home. She always felt tired after school, and the only ones she wanted to take a nap with her were Don or Sharon. Mary liked sleeping next to Sharon, but she liked it better when Don was the one taking a nap with her. Don would tell her stories he called "poems" that weren't too long and sounded very nice when he said them. She could remember little bits of some because he had said them so often. He would say the poems as many times as she wanted, and he always hugged her close when he said them.

Mary hugged lots of people, but it was Don's hugs before sleeping that were the best hugs. His skin was always warm and he let her use him for a pillow. Sometimes after her nap she kissed him to see what he tasted like, and his skin would get hotter, especially on his cheeks. Sometimes when she kissed Don her skin got hotter too, especially on her tummy. She meant to ask Misses Will-Son about that, but she kept forgetting. Maybe she should ask Don instead. She hoped she wouldn't forget before they got home. Misses Will-Son said if Mary had questions about being mary'd that she should ask her or Don in private. She said mary'd stuff was okay to talk about, but not in groups of people. Mary also wanted to ask Misses Will-Son why Don always took a shower after she kissed him at home, but she'd forgotten to ask about that, too.

Mary wished she could write good so that she could make a list of her questions. She had so many questions, especially about Don. She wanted to know everything she could about Don. He was the most inner-sting person she knew, and when she saw him after he had been gone for a while it felt like there was a little bird flapping its wings in her tummy.

She had a bracelet that told Don and Sharon and JEEB and other people where she was all the time. It had a teeny button that flashed green sometimes to say it was working. It had another button, a blue one that flashed when Don pushed a button on his own bracelet. It meant he was thinking about her and he wanted her to know that he was thinking about her. Mary liked it when the blue button flashed because sometimes she felt very lonely when he was somewhere else. A lot of times he was other places protecting people and couldn't come to her. But whenever he wasn't out protecting people he came right back. Sometimes he stayed at school with her for a while and helped her learn. Don said he wanted to be with her as much as he could. That made the bird in her tummy flap its wings even more.

Nothing really happened for a while after the big boom so Mary was able to focus on building the little tower with Susie. They had to make the bottom out of blue blocks, the middle out of yellow blocks, and the top out of red blocks. Then they had to count how many blocks they had. Usually Mary did the building and Susie did the counting, but today Misses Will-Son asked them to try each other's job and see if they could do it. Mary had counted the blocks before Susie used them, but then she'd forgotten how many there were once the tower was built. She tried and tried, but she always got confused between six and seven because they both began with an 's'. Mary was just starting to get upset when the blue light on her bracelet flashed. The bird flapped its wings a little bit.

'_I can do this,'_ she told herself. _'And if I can't, Don will remember how. He remembers for both of us.'_ Don had told her that they were like one person because they were mary'd, and she believed him because sometimes when he wasn't here she felt like parts of her were missing. Mary closed her eyes and remembered Don's face. She looked around in her head a little bit and found his face when he was helping her learn numbers. She opened her eyes and pointed at each block, saying the numbers out loud along with his memory. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. There are ten blocks." She grinned at Susie, who was also smiling. "There are ten blocks, Susie!"

"Yay, Mary, you did it! We did it together!" They both clapped for themselves. Susie was happy for Mary, and Mary was happy too. She was also happy because Don would be happy when she told him about it. Mary thought very hard about remembering to tell Don that she had been able to count ten blocks. She put the thought away with the memory of him helping her to learn numbers.

When she put the numbers thought away for later, another memory came out. This one was from yesterday (or maybe the day before?) when she had kissed Don before class. He tasted like sugar and bread that day. She couldn't remember what he had tasted like this morning, though. When she almost felt upset about that she told herself she could kiss Don when he came at the end of school. Mary also really wanted to kiss him after her nap, too. She liked that part more and more.

Thinking about kissing Don in their bed made the little bird float down lower in her tummy and flap its wings really a lot.


	61. 35 weeks before E-Day: 1300 Dom

35 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Ephyra, 1300 hours]

Maria held her breath behind Dom as he grasped the doorknob. He was applying all of his commando stealth training and bomb-defusing delicacy to close the door to his daughter's room without waking her up.

Dom held the knob twisted so that the latch was withdrawn into the door as he shut it. He slowed down a millimeter before the door touched the jamb and held the two pieces of wood a hairsbreadth apart. Maria made no sound at all, but he knew without looking at her that she was holding her hands to her mouth. He eyeballed the sliver of doorjamb he could see and slowly, very slowly, untwisted the doorknob so that the latch slipped into the gap in the striker plate. He pulled his fingers away carefully to avoid bumping the knob.

Dom shuffled back a step, two steps, and felt for Maria's hand behind him. She guided them backward down the hallway to their own bedroom, with Dom watching Sylvie's door suspiciously, as if it might open on its own if left unsupervised. They backed into their room and shut their own door with the same care they had used for their son's and daughter's. Dom cautiously turned the lock, then looked at Maria with wide eyes.

_Yes!_ Maria mouthed soundlessly, pumping her fists in the air like the Cole Train after a flawless touchdown.

_We did it!_ Dom mouthed to her. _They're sleeping! At the same time!_

_I know! _she answered. _First time ever!_

They hugged each other victoriously. Bennie and Sylvie had never taken naps at the same time during the day before. Which left Dom and Maria some highly-anticipated time to themselves.

Dom had been able to sleep at home for the last few weeks, but between their children's nighttime requests for water, faked tummy-aches, bedtime-story binges, and rooms that were too hot/cold/dark/light/drafty/stuffy, it had been ten days since he and Maria had been intimate, which was an eternity in Santiago Time. At 1700 this afternoon he had to start some very hush-hush training that meant he'd be sleeping on base for the next few weeks, so they had a 5 hour window to carve out some husband-and-wife time.

They pressed their ears to the door and listened for a few minutes, alert for the sounds of rustling bedclothes, sneaky toy-box opening or little feet padding down the hallway to Mommy and Daddy's room. Finally Maria stood back and nodded at Dom. "Clear," she said softly.

Dom let a leer overtake his face, and Maria folded her hands coyly behind her and watched him from underneath her lashes as he pursued her across the room in slow motion.

"So," she whispered in false innocence, "what do you want to do with our free time? Cribbage? Gardening? A nice cup of tea?"

"I think I'll just settle for doing my wife."

She fluttered her eyelashes. "Whatever do you mean, Mr. Santiago?"

Dom took a huge step forward to grab her, but Maria's widened eyes reminded him that the kids would hear if he threw her onto the bed. The metal fastenings that held the wooden frame together needed to be oiled, so it was far too squeaky for a noontime romp with two curious little children sleeping lightly nearby.

Damn. He hadn't thought any farther along than this.

Maria had, apparently. She indicated the big leather armchair in the corner with her eyes and made her eyebrows jump.

Dom raised an eyebrow too. _Really? _He mouthed.

Maria nodded seductively. Dom stood still to see what she would do.

They were technically still newlyweds, having been married for just under three years. They'd had their first child seven months into their marriage, which cut their personal time down to almost nothing, and half of those remaining nights were spent apart while Dom was on the military base. The result was that there was still a lot of unexplored territory in their intimate relationship. For example, they'd never done it in a chair before.

Dom tilted his head to the side, trying to picture how that would work and having a great time figuring angles and leverage.

Maria sashayed over to lean on the back of the armchair, still watching him, and spread her hands over the leather as if it were Dom's own skin. He swallowed. She grinned at seeing the effect she was having on him. He could feel his face getting hot, and Maria said that the tips of his ears turned pink when he was really worked up. He didn't doubt it. With her lower body hidden behind the broad back of the armchair, Maria ran her hands down her thighs to the hem of her skirt and back up again underneath it.

Dom started breathing hard. Well, hard-_er._

His wife appeared to grasp the sides of her panties and pull them down her legs and off, all without breaking eye contact with him. This guess was confirmed when she slingshotted her lacy underthings at his face. They both laughed silently.

She slinked out from behind the armchair and around the front. Then she took one of the pillows off the bed and put it on the floor in front of the chair. Dom tilted his head the other way this time. What was she up to?

He got the idea very quickly when she turned her back to him and gave him a steamy look over her shoulder like a swimsuit model. Maria knelt on the pillow and rested her forearms on the seat of the armchair. Just in case he didn't get it, she batted her eyes and wiggled her rump invitingly.

Dom almost broke off his fingernails scrabbling to undo his zipper.

If they made love during the day, it was a good idea to leave most of their clothing on since the kids—or worse, one of Maria's parents—could come by at any moment. It was a lot easier to pretend they hadn't been doing anything intimate when they could show up fully dressed in a matter of seconds.

This was one of the reasons Maria had taken to wearing skirts when Dom was home; all she had to remove and put back on was her panties.

Dom knelt on the pillow as well, but didn't immediately draw up her skirts even though he was uncovered and more than ready to fulfill his husbandly duties. He despised the stories other soldiers told at the barracks of how they simply whipped the clothes off their dates/girlfriends/fiancees and plunged right into the deed. He and Marcus usually found some excuse to leave during those tales: Dom because he refused to hear about other people's casual sexual encounters lest it taint his time with Maria; Marcus because if he stayed he would probably punch the storytellers in the face for being so crude about events he himself spent weeks planning in minute detail.

Dom pressed his hips against the backs of her thighs but made no attempt slip between them yet. Instead he encircled her slender waist with his broad hands and kissed the nape of her neck, first gently and then with increasing enthusiasm. Maria made sure to moan very quietly, just loud enough for Dom to know she was enjoying the contact. He worked his way around to the side of her smooth neck and she tilted her head in the opposite direction. Dom applied his lips and tongue liberally to the area where her neck met her shoulder, using just enough suction to make her quiver but not enough to leave a bruise. He waited until she began panting before bringing his hands up underneath her blouse and cupping her breasts through her thin brassiere. It turned out to be the embroidered purple one that he liked so much. He hummed his appreciation against her shoulder and she made a similar noise that let him know she'd worn it for this purpose. Dom rolled his hips lightly against her bottom and she gasped.

He kissed the corner of her mouth chastely and dragged his fingertips down the slight depression between her abdominal muscles to the waistband of her skirt. Maria tossed her hair over his shoulder and reached a hand back to tangle in his own curly mane. She tugged his head forward for another, deeper kiss. Dom's questing fingers slipped under the waistband and continued on down. Maria gasped again, much more loudly.

"Shhh," he reminded her, very pleased that he'd made her forget to be quiet.

Maria pressed her rear against him as if to say _Well, hurry up then._

The moisture his fingers had found told him she was prepared for the next step, so he rolled up her skirt and pushed himself between her thighs. His wife hissed through her teeth. Fully half the fun of love-making for Dom was seeing how wild he could drive Maria, though, so he withheld from full contact. Maria squeezed her thighs together, making him hiss in turn.

She knew very well he was trying to drive her into a frenzy, and she had a few counter-measures of her own.

Maria released his hair and slipped that hand between her thighs, to where she held him captive. The most sensitive part of his anatomy was pinned between her legs and her fingertips, and by the time he realized what she was doing, pulling away from her would only have made the situation more intense.

Dom pressed his face between her shoulder blades and groaned.

"Shhh," she reminded him, just as pleased to give the rebuke as he had been.

Maria had elegantly long fingernails and she knew just how to use them on her husband.

"Oh, please, no," Dom whispered against her back. Even though they weren't quite twenty years old yet, Dom never wanted to finish unexpectedly like an inexperienced teenager.

"In," she demanded in payment.

Dom obeyed gladly.

They were completely still for several moments. Just that first hot, wet contact was almost too much for both of them. Although the final result was more impressive for the waiting, ten days was still far too long.

Maria was supporting her arms and upper body with the armchair, Dom bracing his hands on the edge of the seat with his thighs tucked underneath her own and her gorgeous rump pressed against his stomach. Both kept their eyes closed for an unknown amount of time, almost overstimulated just by their synchronized pulses running through the relevant areas.

Dom's head was bent almost as if in prayer. "Maria," he said softly. It wasn't a call or a demand, just a declaration.

"Dom," she breathed with the same intent. "Dom," she whispered again when he began to move against her. "Dom," she moaned as quietly as she could when he picked up the pace, and her hands gripped the leather seat of the armchair for support. The pleasure started rippling through her almost immediately, unable as she was to release any of the tension by making noise. Instead the ecstasy coiled in her abdomen and streaked back and forth across her breasts like electricity. Dom wrapped his hands around the tops of her thighs for leverage, which only ratcheted up the tension to a level that was quickly becoming unbearable. Now it was Maria who was in danger of finishing as early as a teenage boy. Determined not to be the only one, she reached back and slipped a hand down between them to drew her fingernails gently along the second-most-sensitive part of Dom's anatomy.

Dom barely remembered not to shout, and his next push came much harder than he'd intended. That was the endgame for Maria, but she wasn't alone as she convulsed around him because he couldn't hold on any longer than she did. He buried his face in her back to stifle his cry, but he didn't worry about Maria. As loud as she could be during the beginning and middle, she was always silent at the end, having no energy to spare for sound.

Maria collapsed onto the seat of the chair, and Dom fell limply onto her back. Neither of them made a move to get up for who-knows-how-long.

Then they heard a sing-song little voice from another room call, "Mooommmyyy?"

Maria raised her head and cleared her throat. "Yeah, baby?"

"I'm thirrrsty."

"Okay, Benito, I'll bring you a glass of water."

She used her elbow to nudge Dom, who was practically asleep on her back. "Dom."

"Hmmm?"

"Your son's calling me."

"Make him get his own water." Maria felt him smile against her shoulder.

"I'm not buying any more drinking glasses if he breaks another one."

Dom chuckled softly. "Okay, okay." He lifted the sweaty strands of hair plastered to her neck and placed a kiss just behind her ear. "Let me do it. You need to find your underwear anyhow. I'm not sure where it went." Dom got up with all the grace of a newborn calf learning how to walk and stumbled over to the vanity mirror on top of her bureau. His curls were too tightly coiled to have been mussed by her fingers, but he smoothed his hair anyway as he tidied his clothing.

Maria twisted around to sit with her back against the chair and her arms spread out along the edge of the seat as she watched him go through his midday post-coital ritual. He took a handkerchief out of the top drawer and wiped off his face and the small of his back, which was where he tended to sweat the most. He zipped up and checked for any telltale splotches on his pants, then tucked in his shirt and shot the cuffs. She adored it when he straightened out his shirt because he did it whether he was wearing a button-down dress shirt, a cotton tee or a lumpy hand-made sweater. It was one of a hundred little things that made him 'Dom', and she treasured each one.

Dom turned to look at her before he opened the door. "Nine point nine," he said with a grin.

She wiggled her hips seductively, knowing that she still looked totally ravished, what with her skirt rumpled up around her thighs and her wildly disheveled hair and flushed face. Although her husband had climaxed not five or ten minutes ago, she still saw his eyes go wide and his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. Maria laughed softly, and he shook his head and grinned adorably at her as he left to get Benito something to drink.

Maria had known Dom for eight years, been intimate with him for over three and married to him for a little less than that, and yet she still got butterflies in her stomach whenever he smiled at her in that particular way. She knew that even the best marriages hit rough spots and that someday her utter infatuation with Dominic Santiago would be tempered by the fires of hardship into a steadier, more reliable affection. But of all the things she enjoyed about being madly in love, the one thing she hoped would endure the passage of time were those little butterflies.

**# # #**

**I've got "vacation brain", so I had to go back and fix a few typos. Also, I almost forgot to have Dom or Maria give their score! Scandalous!**


	62. E-Day plus 15 years: 1515 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS

[Vectes Naval Base, 1515 hours]

Baird was absurdly pleased that Sharon was waiting on the hospital's helipad but Anya was nowhere to be seen when Marcus stepped down. He was also very amused that the brave and talented sergeant steered clear of Mac—whose prey was going to look like a patchwork quilt when Doc Hayman stitched him back together—and hardly noticed Ding-Dong, who had knocked down his own target and played tug-o-war with the guy's pant leg until the Gears caught up to them. The guy hadn't been able to shoot the dog without risk to his own leg, so the bloodhound had joyfully dragged him around like a mop until Sam Byrne rolled up on her rat-bike and given the terrorist an extreme close-up of her shotgun barrel.

Marcus sure was a pussy when it came to dogs. Mac had only been doing what his training and his breeding told him to. It seemed fitting that Marcus would prefer an overgrown puppy who worshiped the ground he walked on instead of an impressive beast of war like Mac. The bloodhound even tried to follow Marcus into the hospital when the sergeant escorted the human chew-toy inside. Connor had to distract the dejected pooch with a piece of Bernie's venison jerky.

As Delta marched Pant-Leg and his teenage son into the building to have their minor wounds dressed, Sharon dropped into step beside Baird.

"I want you to take DENIS with you the next time you go out," she said.

"Why?" He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Because he can detect and defuse bombs better than JACK. And JACK needs an anti-grav overhaul anyway."

"You just keep your hands on your own robots and leave JACK to me."

"Fine. But I still want you to convince Hoffman to clear DENIS for field work. He's just sitting around the shop most of the time. He's bored."

Baird huffed. "Bored. Right. Because robots need entertainment or they get stir-crazy."

"Don't believe me? Then why did he sort all of the spare parts by size while you were sleeping last night? And the wires by gauge? And the lubricants by viscosity? Nobody told him to do that."

Jace happened to join up with them just then. "What's all this about lubricants?" he asked with interest.

Baird glared at him. "_Machine_ lubricants, Stratton. Get your mind out of the gutter."

"Dude, I'm seventeen. My mind is legally required to be in the gutter for the next five years or so."

Sharon laughed over her shoulder at him as they trooped down the hallway. "And even after that, it's a toss-up." She winked at Baird.

_'Don't try to charm me, Sharon,'_ he thought. _'I'm not in your fan club anymore.'_ He gave her an unsmiling glance. Sharon shrugged and dropped back to chat with the horny teenager some more. _'Figures.'_

When the three bombers had been zip-tied to gurneys under the piercing gaze of Colonel Hoffman, Delta was dismissed to take care of their weapons and armor.

Baird started walking toward his workshop, which he had begun to think of as 'home'. That was unsettling because the workshop he and Sharon had rented as teenagers had been 'home', more so than either of the mansions they lived in:

_They're at a house party with James and his girlfriend-of-the-month, and Damon is getting more irritated by the second. The music is too loud to talk to her, the lights are too dark for him to see her face, and every time they go onto the dance floor guys keep trying to feel Sharon's ass. The fourth time she has to stop him from throwing the same tipsy Thrashball jock through the picture window, she suggests they leave. _

"_Maybe I shouldn't have worn such a short skirt." It only comes up to her mid-thigh, but that's enough leg to attract the many horn-dogs who already have the hots for Sharon. He sees another one closing in, so he finally steps in front of her so that she has a wall at her back and Damon in front._

"_I told you it probably wasn't a good idea."_

"_But you like this skirt."_

"_I like it for _me_ to look at, not for _them_ to look at. Not that Handsy McGrabberson over there is your fault."_

_She slings her arms around his neck and puts on a fake pout that makes him want to kiss her, but he knows that will only get their audience even hotter for her, and he's still sore from the last guy he beat up. _

"_I'm sorry, sugar," she says. "What do you want to do instead?"_

_He shrugs. "I don't care as long as it's just the two of us. What do you want to do?"_

_Sharon pulls him down so that her mouth is at his ear and says, "I want to go home and ride you like a pony."_

_Damon yells over the crowd, "JAMES! Sharon and I are going to leave early we'll see you tomorrow at school don't forget there's a history test you guys have a good time okay bye!"_

"What are you thinking about?" Sharon asked. Baird jumped. Apparently she'd abandoned Jace and caught up with him.

"Uh, crowd-control variables." She could usually tell when he was lying, so half-truths were the way to go.

"Speaking of, I'm almost done with the thingy." She clasped her hands excitedly.

"You going to tell me what it is now?"

She shook her head playfully. "Nope. Not until it's ready for a demonstration. You'll love it."

"What about the mag field upgrades?"

"All of Delta's are done except for Stratton's."

"You should probably get on that. Don't want your new boy-toy getting ventilated."

She made an annoyed face at him. "Yeah, right, because seventeen-year-old boys make such great lovers."

"Hey!" He was offended in spite of himself.

Sharon put her hands up in a peace-making gesture. "Okay, okay: present company excluded."

"Better be," Baird grumbled. "Don't go re-writing history."

She gave him a serious look. "I won't if you won't."

They'd reached the shop. As Baird unlocked the door he demanded, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Meaning I'd really like it if you stopped telling people I'm a great big slut." Her voice could have cut glass. "That might keep other seventeen-year-old boys from hitting on me."

Baird held the door for her and she marched past him into the dim shop. He flipped on the overhead lights, which took a few minutes to reach full brightness. "I said that to _one guy _back at Port Farrall when you first got there because I was mad at you. Not my fault if he elaborated on it and started a rumor."

"Well, he must be a really great storyteller, because so far three different Gears have offered to pay me for sex." She leaned back against the workbench and crossed her arms.

"They _WHAT_?"

"Offered. To pay me. For sex." Her eyes were as hard as chips of amber.

His jaw started aching and it took a second to realize it was because he was grinding his teeth together so hard. "Names. I want names, Sharon. Who are these assholes?"

"Why would you care? You're the one who's telling everybody I'm a whore." She jerked up her chin in defiance.

"I—" All the other times he'd insinuated she had loose morals came back to him uncomfortably fast. He was about to apologize when he remembered holding their wedding program in his hand. All the old anger flared up again. "That's because you _did_ whore yourself out!"

"_Yes! You're right, okay? I did, goddammit!_" He was speechless for a moment. Sharon continued in a rare fit of high temper. "I married someone for money, all right? That doesn't mean I'm a professional prostitute!"

Baird was assaulted by an image of her in bed with James. "No, it means you're a hooker with only one client!" he yelled.

Sharon had never hit him in her life, but he still ducked when she snatched up a crescent wrench. She hucked it at the air compressor across the room and it ricocheted off the huge metal tank with a loud _bang_. "You think that was _easy_? You think I was looking forward to sleeping with him? You think I _wanted_ to marry James?"

Baird slammed the flat of his hand on the metal workbench and everything on it jumped. _"Yes!_ Yes, I damn well _do_ think that!" He could feel his face turning red.

Sharon was so furious that for a few moments she couldn't even speak. "You—you—" Her hands were shaking with rage. She took two huge steps forward and stabbed a finger at him viciously. "How _dare_ you accuse me of wanting what happened? I did what I _had_ to do, not what I _wanted_ to do!"

He stepped closer too, until her pointing finger was almost touching his chest. "Bullshit! You didn't want to be poor, is all! You wanted to be the big goddamn hero who saved your family from poverty! The tragic figure who sacrificed her happiness to rescue them! What about _my_ happiness? What about _my_ life?" His face twisted up in snarl. "The two of you almost _killed_ me!"

Sharon's anger stumbled over her confusion. "What do you mean? It was James who almost died."

"Yeah, well, _I_ almost died _first_!"

"What are you talking about? Were you hurt?" The Damon she'd known wasn't the suicidal type.

"Yeah, I was 'hurt'! That's what happens when you start vomiting blood!"

She gaped at him in horror. "What did you do to yourself?"

"I didn't _do_ anything to myself! It was you two! Did you think knowing my best friend and the love of my life were frakking each other's brains out wouldn't bother me? The stress gave me a frigging _perforated ulcer!_"

Her anger faded into the background. "But … ulcers hurt like sons of bitches. How could you not realize you had one?"

He was still livid. "How was I supposed to tell one goddamned kind of pain from another, Sharon? _Everything_ hurt! I could have been lit on _fire _and it wouldn't have felt any different!"

The old feelings of guilt fell on Sharon like a lead blanket. The idea of her Damon in such mental agony that his body burned a hole in itself made her own stomach start to ache. "You should have told me."

"Told you what? 'You're killing me, Sharon'? You knew damn well what you were doing to me!"

"No I didn't! You wouldn't even talk to me!"

"I wouldn't talk to you? I sent you messages all the time!"

"How?"

He threw out an arm to indicate the robot. "Through DENIS! But you never answered me!"

"I never got any messages!"

They both paused, realizing who else had had access to DENIS's communication system. Who could have erased Damon's messages before Sharon could receive them.

Damon shook his head, eyes closed and jaw clenched. "That _bastard_." He opened his eyes and stared at her coldly. "Doesn't matter. You wouldn't have answered me anyway. And then you two locked me out of DENIS's system."

"We what?"

"Locked. Me. Out."

"I did no such thing!" James again. Dammit. Sharon asked curiously, "What did your messages say?"

His face went hard. "Doesn't matter now. None of it does."

She growled in exasperation. "If none of it matters now, why do you keep bringing these things up?"

"Because I want to know!"

"Want to know what?" He crossed his arms and said nothing. She growled again. "Just ask your damned questions. Ask me anything, and I'll tell you the truth." He snorted in disbelief. Sharon narrowed her eyes. "Try me. Go ahead: ask me anything."

Damon set his jaw. "Anything?"

"Anything." She knew she was opening herself up to a lot of grief, but she couldn't work alongside him and tolerate the silent resentment any longer.

"Fine." He looked around the shop, tapping his foot and thinking. Then he turned his fiery blue gaze back to her. "Did you enjoy frakking him?"

She gaped at him. _"What?"_

"It's a simple question, Sharon: Did. You. Enjoy it?"

"No I didn't, you asshole!"  
"Yeah, right."

She snarled. "I said no, and I mean it."

"You're telling me you never, ever had an orgasm with your husband?"

"That's not what I said."

"How could you have an orgasm and not enjoy it?"

"It's an autonomic physical reaction, Damon! If your nose tickles enough, you sneeze. If you scrape your knee, it hurts. If you stimulate genitalia enough, you have an orgasm. That doesn't mean I wanted to have sex with him, or even that I was having a good time; I just got 'rubbed the right way'." At the moment Sharon didn't care if she was being crude; she didn't have the time or the inclination to put it more delicately. And a rude question deserved a rude answer anyway.

"If you didn't want to have sex with him, then why did you?"

"Because a marriage isn't legal until you do!"

"Fine, so you had to frak him once for 'legal reasons'. Why did you _keep_ frakking him?" Damon was getting wound up again. "Plenty of people have sexless marriages, why couldn't you?"

She'd asked herself that question a hundred times before the wedding, trying to find a loophole. Sharon was suddenly too tired to be angry anymore. "Because they can still annul a marriage for up to a year after the wedding for 'alienation of affection'. Besides, the damage was done. I'd married him, I'd let him screw me and I'd taken his money. My old life was over." She ran a hand through her hair. "I didn't have you anymore, I didn't have my identity … I didn't even have my own self-respect. I was just Mrs. James Keller, who married for money." She shrugged sadly. "When I found out about Grace, it was like I had a life again. I was a mother."

"That's another thing! You took ovulation suppressants the whole time we were together, but you stopped taking them as soon as you got married. For someone who wasn't enjoying herself, you sure were in a hurry to have kids!"

"I have no idea how I got pregnant."

"Let me enlighten you, Sharon: first you let James put his dick in your—"

Sharon was energized by a new wave of anger. "I was still taking the suppressants, jackass!"

"Then how did you get pregnant?"

"Like I just said: I don't know! They should have worked!"

"Great, so you just decided to have a kid with him?"

Sharon roared, _"I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE FOR GRACE!"_ Damon or not, she would shred his face with her own fingernails if he suggested she should have aborted her daughter.

Damon took a step back when she shouted, but he quickly regained his own voice. "I didn't say you shouldn't have had her!"

"What the hell _did_ you mean, then?"

"I mean you know damn well I would have raised her as my own!" This time it was she who was speechless, so he jumped into the gap and yelled out a long-suppressed question. "Why the hell didn't you come back to me after E-Day, when his money didn't matter anymore? I would have taken care of you and the baby! It wouldn't have mattered to me that James provided half her DNA and you know it!"

Sharon's cheeks burned with shame when she remembered lying there in the dark next to James, feeling the first contractions seize her swollen abdomen and trying not to fantasize about writing 'Grace Elain Baird' on the baby's birth certificate.

"Because he was her _father_, Damon! I couldn't give James everything he wanted from me, but I sure as hell wasn't going to steal his offspring! You might not have had a problem with it, but I would have!" She couldn't help baring her teeth. "So yeah, I'm the kind of person who married for money; and yeah, I was the kind of wife who didn't love her husband; and yeah, I probably would have been an adulterous bitch who abandoned him after E-Day; but I'd be _damned_ if I'd take a little girl away from her daddy!"

Damon was silent for a long time. Then he asked, "If it weren't for Grace you would have left him?" He didn't need to add 'for me?'

"Yes," she admitted quietly. "Prior … commitments and all that." She huffed bitterly. "I'd have been twice a cheater, but I'd have done it." She picked at her nails. "Dunno how I would have lived with myself. Had a hard enough time after … well, you." Sharon shook her head. "Keeping a child away from her father, though: I don't think I would have made it through that in one piece." She smiled at him humorlessly. "I'd have made you miserable, Damon. And you wouldn't have trusted me any more than you do now. At least you figured out you weren't missing much, right? Like you keep saying: I whored myself out." She sat down heavily on the floor and leaned back against a tool chest. "It only makes me mad when you say it because I know it's true."

He shuffled some loose parts around on the bench. "I guess so." He bit his lower lip briefly. "Maybe."

"You know, up until I said the vows, I never thought I could actually go through with it. And then … I did. Just goes to show you never really know who you are until the pressure is on."

Damon wouldn't look at her now. He was probably feeling embarrassed that he'd once loved a person like her. There was nothing he despised more than someone who stabbed their friends in the back.

That might be why he had such animosity toward Marcus Fenix. He wouldn't care that Fenix had gone AWOL to save his father; what undoubtedly mattered more to Damon was that the sergeant had abandoned his men to their deaths. Fenix had never been vindicated or pardoned, either; Santiago had also gone AWOL to break him out. From Damon's emotionally-skewed point of view, Fenix was getting away with several thousand murders simply because he was the popular son of someone rich and famous. Like James. And it didn't help that Dom had a carbon-copy of James's personality. Minus the bride-stealing, of course.

Sharon sat on the floor of the shop with her arms draped over her bent knees, staring at the wall. The soft chiming of Damon's nervous tinkering faded into the background.

In her mind's eye she saw him, desperately in love with her, reaching through the Bairds' iron gate; James's dark head bent over her hand as he slipped the gold ring on her finger; the doctor handing her Grace, swaddled in a pink blanket and wearing a tiny knitted cap. Her entire extended family when they had gathered at the Markhams' estate, begging her not to let them lose everything they had.

_'All for nothing,' _she thought. _'Everything I did was for nothing.'_ Her heartbeat slowed significantly and her bones felt heavy. She was so tired. She wanted to lie down on the concrete floor and never get up again. _'They're all dead. My family, my husband, my baby, my Damon. If I'd known the Locust were coming I could have saved some of them.'_

"Four months' warning," she said quietly to herself. "Four goddamned months."

The chiming stopped.

Sharon scrambled to her feet and walked out. If "Baird" called after her, she didn't hear him.


	63. E-Day plus 15 years: 1700 Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS

[Vectes Naval Base, 1700 hours]

Marcus was in a particularly foul mood, so he chose to accompany Dom to the elementary school to pick up Maria. Seeing her alive and well (mostly), the sister-figure he'd thought dead and gone, never failed to pull him out of whatever emotional tailspin he was in that particular day.

And what a bitch today was. Anya had almost died, several Gears including Andresen _had_ died, a terrorist—of all people— had called him "worse than the frakking Grubs," and then Trescu had summarily executed an unarmed prisoner in front of a kid and threatened to do the same to the kid's father if they didn't talk.

Marcus was many things, and few of them were virtuous:

A disobedient son who joined the army against his father's wishes.

A glory-hog who left his best friend to die alone when he saw an opportunity to change the tide of battle at Aspho.

An opportunist who'd conned a young woman grieving for her mother into sleeping with him.

A cold fish of a lover who strung that same woman along for seventeen years when he had no intention of marrying her.

A traitor who'd exchanged several thousand innocent lives for one, just because that one person was important to him.

Now he was a sadistic freak who subconsciously wanted to rape and murder his girlfriend, and not necessarily in that order.

There weren't many moral lines he hadn't crossed. However, almost all of Marcus's sins were unplanned, unintentional, or unwillingly committed, the natural expression of a corrupt soul.

But at least he didn't kill people in cold blood and mentally torture teenagers.

_'Not yet, anyway.'_

They were about half an hour early, so Dom sat in the hallway to wait until school let out at 1730.

Marcus paced. His Anya-withdrawal symptoms had come on with a vengeance. He could barely choke down enough food to fuel his body, and even the good stuff that Dom and Maria insisted on sharing with him seemed disgusting and horribly textured. For all the enjoyment he was getting out of it, he might as well have been forcing eel slime down his throat.

His hands trembled constantly from wanting to touch her. It was like his nervous system had gone haywire from not getting the usual charge from touching her skin.

The paranoia was consuming his waking thoughts as well. He couldn't be near her without having shockingly lustful thoughts, but with each passing day his mind constructed more and more violent events that could befall her when he wasn't there. He also imagined people staring at him, judging him for selfishly holding on to Anya when she could be with someone who didn't have necrophiliac fantasies about her.

He could spend most of his sleepless nights immersed in the memory palace, but to be even moderately useful on duty he couldn't retreat to that sanctuary during the day.

He needed to see Maria. Even in her mangled state, she was proof that not everything went wrong forever. She was hope for the future, a symbol of this broken world's potential to be healed. And not just for him; many people—COG, nomad, Stranded, Gorasni—saw her as practically a divine promise that someday things would be better. Not the same, not perfect, but better. More people kept tabs on her reconstruction than even Dom realized.

For example, even now Marcus could hear a class of first-graders clamoring to be told the fairy tale that had evolved from Dom and Maria's now-epic romance.

"The Lost Lady!" some little boy's voice chirped. The door to the classroom was wedged open with a brick to let fresh air circulate, so the pleading carried into the hallway. "Tell us 'The Lost Lady' again!" A chorus of little voices echoed his request until the teacher laughingly agreed.

Another little voice said doubtfully, "I've never heard of it."

_'Probably one of the new Stranded kids,_' Marcus supposed.

"I've never actually heard it either," Dom whispered to Marcus.

"I guess now's your chance," he whispered back.

They heard the teacher tell the new kid, "You'll like it. Especially because most of it is true."

Not far into the story, Marcus became so involved in the tale that he was able to put aside his self-centered ruminating long enough to sit down next to Dom and listen.

**# # #**

**I'm back from vacation, yay! Now I can go back to obsessively writing Gears of War fiction!  
I know this story is getting rather long, but fear not: I know exactly where it is going and how it will end. (I'm no J.J. Abrams, e.g. the decline and fall of "Lost" and "Alias".) It's just that the middle part of the story keeps growing. Plus it's three complicated love stories in one.  
Hope you're willing to stick with me to the end!**


	64. E-Day plus 15 years: 1720 Dom

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS

[Vectes Naval Base, 1720 hours]

"Once upon a time—" the teacher began.

Dom grinned at Marcus. Marcus did that un-frowning thing that was as close as he got to smiling.

"—in a land far, far away, lived a knight and his lady-wife."

'_You're a knight,'_ Marcus mouthed at Dom.

'_Of course I am,'_ he mouthed back. Marcus could do basic lip-reading.

"The Knight and the Lady lived in a great stone house with a garden full of flowers and fountains."

While the teacher described the garden, Marcus teased Dom, _'More like a stucco three-bedroom with a yard the size of a postage stamp.'_ Dom was a great lip-reader. Marcus's own sentence probably would have looked like gibberish to him.

'_You__ still lived with your __dad__,' _Dom shot back. Marcus un-frowned again.

"They had two wonderful young children. A girl and a boy."

Dom and Marcus both stared at their boots. They never talked about Bennie and Sylvie. Marcus had found their bodies in the ruins of Maria's family home. Dom had tried to get past Marcus to his children, but Marcus wouldn't let him. They fought, and eventually Marcus had to knock Dom out to keep him from going inside. Later, all Marcus would tell Dom about how they died was that it was bad. He made sure Dom and Maria never saw the bodies before they were cremated.

"The human kingdom was at war with the kingdom of the trolls."

_'The Locust, obviously,' _Dom thought to himself.

"The Knight was called away to fight them at the edge of the city."

Dom closed his eyes for just a moment.

"The great stone house had always been safe because of the thick wall of evergreen trees surrounding it. But the trolls had learned how to dig."

Dom and Marcus could hear muffled sounds from other classrooms, but the children listening to the fairy tale were absolutely silent. Marcus sat down next to Dom for support as the teacher continued.

"They knew the Knight was very brave, and that his wife was very wise. They feared that the children of the Knight and his Lady would become even mightier in war and greater in wisdom than their parents and destroy all of the trolls with their courage and their cunning. So they tunneled their way up into the garden."

Marcus scooted a bit closer to Dom.

"The Lady believed her children were safe where they played in the garden, so she was in the house making garments for them out of spun silver. She did not hear the children crying in fear through the thick stone walls. The girl and the boy were so little that they could not run fast enough to get away."

Dom clenched his jaw.

"So they did something only the very, very young and the very, very old are able to: they grew wings and flew away."

Dom raised his eyebrows at Marcus. He'd wondered how Bennie and Sylvie's deaths would be explained in a way that wouldn't terrify young listeners.

"The trolls gnashed their teeth and howled because their prey had escaped. They heard the Lady coming down the stairs to see what the howling was about. Trolls are afraid of bravery, beauty and wisdom, so they disappeared back into their tunnel and covered the hole with grass.

"When the Lady came into the garden, she found nothing at all and no one anywhere. The children were flying high up in the sky and learning to speak with the angels there, so they did not see her looking for them, and they did not hear her calling out their names. The Lady thought they had gone to play in the woods and gotten lost, so she left their silver garments by the biggest fountain and called out to the evergreen trees, which parted to make a way for her into the forest. Then they closed the way after her, so that no trolls could follow.

"When the Knight came home from the war, the Lady was long gone. He found the silver clothes in the garden, lying by the fountain as if someone had dropped them, so he looked up. High, high up in the sky he saw his son and daughter flying with their new wings, and speaking with their new friends. He called out to them, 'Why did you grow wings? Where is your mother?' However, they could not understand him because they no longer spoke his language, but the language of the angels. Once people have grown wings and gone up into the sky, they can never come back down again. The Knight was saddened that he could no longer speak with his children, and he was grieved because he could no longer hold them."

'_He still is,'_ Dom thought. Marcus looked like he thought so too.

"But seeing that his children were safe with the angels, he went out into the world to look for his lady-wife. He made a shield out of the silver garments—"

Marcus tapped Dom's plate armor with one knuckle. Dom nodded.

"—and he took his spear and his sword—"

Dom recognized the poetic description of a Lancer with a blade bayonet.

"—and his faithful hound—"

Marcus scowled at being relegated to the role of a dog.

"—and they mounted the Knight's giant eagle—"

_'Must be a King Raven helicopter.'_

"—to fly out and look for the Lady.

"The Knight did not know that the Lady had gone into the forest, and they could not see her from the air. So they flew and flew and flew, making great arcs over the land in search of her. Wherever they found monsters, they landed and slay them to make the paths safer for the Lady. The war-eagle and the war-hound killed almost as many monsters as the Knight did."

Dom smirked at Marcus. Marcus glared.

"This is why we call him the Knight Errant, because he went out bravely to search for one, and in doing so he saved many."

Marcus dropped the scowl long enough to nod in agreement.

"The Lady looked and looked and looked, but she did not find her son and daughter in the forest. She searched the vast forest for seven months. When she had looked up in every tree and under every bush, she left the forest for the grassy plain. Out in the open, the evergreen trees could not protect her, and she was soon captured by the highwaymen."

'_Chimeras,'_ Dom mouthed to Marcus.

"The highwaymen saw the beauty in her face, the wisdom in her eyes and the bravery in her heart, and they hated her because they had none of their own. They tied the Lady to a tree while they decided what to do with her."

One of those coffin-like holding cells.

"Eventually they decided to sell her virtues by halves, so that they could make twice as much money. They took half the beauty from her face and sold it to an ugly witch."

The claw marks covering the right side of her face.

"For the bravery, they took half of her heart and sold it to a hateful coward."

Her memories.

"They took half of her wisdom by removing one of her eyes and sold it to a blind fool. They did not like the hole where her eye had been, so they covered it with a silver coin."

That was the cataract clouding the lens of her right eye.

"With only half a heart, the Lady could not remember where she was, or how she had come to that place, or why she had left the great stone house. Even if she were free she could not find her way home. That is why we call her the Lost Lady.

"The highwaymen argued. Some thought they should kill the Lady and sell the other halves of her virtues. Some thought they should let her live so that the missing halves would grow back, and they could sell them again."

Dom had forgotten how gruesome fairy tales could be.

"While they argued, the tree the Lost Lady was tied to called out to the creatures in the forest. A little she-fox came to see why they were shouting."

'_She-fox?'_ Dom asked Marcus.

'_Sharon.'_

'_Ah.'_

"When the she-fox saw that it was the highwaymen, she was very angry because they had killed her mate and her kits to make gloves from their fur."

That had to be James Keller, and her daughter Grace.

"The she-fox was going to spread their campfire to burn them alive, but then she saw the Lady just outside the circle of light. So instead she chewed through the ropes tying the Lost Lady and nipped at her feet until she stood up. The Lady took hold of the she-fox's tail, and the she-fox led her away.

"The Lost Lady could remember the Knight Errant, but she could not remember the way home. For three months the little she-fox led her all over the land, looking for her home or her husband.

"While the Knight and the Lady looked for each other, the Knight fought many battles."

'_You can say that again.'_ Dom snorted to himself.

"He searched from city to city, slaying trolls, imps, ogres, and all of their beasts of war." Dom guessed those were Drones, Wretches, Boomers, etc.

A door slammed open at the other end of the hallway. "Hey, Dom! Marcus!" Baird shouted. "Have you seen Sharon? I can't find her anywhere!"

"No, we haven't seen her," Dom whispered. "And shut up, we're missing the battle scenes!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Shhh!" both Marcus and Dom hissed at him.

Baird came far enough down the hall to hear what they were listening to. He shook his head. "You two are like a couple of little old ladies. I bet your quarters are stuffed to the rafters with cats and stacks of newspapers."

As far as expendable things to throw, Dom only had a ration pack. But he didn't really like freeze-dried 'beef' stroganoff anyway, so he hucked it at Baird's head. "Go away! I want to hear this!"

Baird caught the ration pack and stuffed it in his belt. "Fine, you nerds. But if you see Sharon, call me on the radio."

"Fine, just go!"

Baird flapped a hand at them in dismissal as he strode off, peeking in every classroom along the way to look for "the little she-fox".

_'I am getting way too into this story,'_ Dom thought.

The teacher had finished most of the battles while Baird was being obnoxious, but they heard her describe the Lightmass bomb and the Sinking. "The Knight poured molten steel down into their warrens, and then he poured in the sea to cool it so that the city of the trolls was filled with solid metal."

'_Nicely done,'_ Marcus mouthed at him.

'_Why, thank you, faithful hound.'_

'_Where am I in this battle?_'

'_I think you're taking a dump on the trolls' front lawn.'_

Marcus tossed his own beef stroganoff at Dom's head.

"When the Knight had finished with the trolls, he hunted down their beasts and destroyed them. The last to be found was their immense dragon."

'_Dragon?'_ Dom asked.

'_Riftworm, maybe?'_

"The Knight's war-eagle forced it to the ground, and the war-hound held it there while the Knight cut out its three writhing hearts."

'_Yup, definitely the Riftworm.'_ Dom shuddered, remembering the stink, the acid, Carmine's horrible death and how they'd almost drowned in the giant worm's blood.

"The keen ears of the little she-fox heard the dragon roaring as it died, and she led the Lady in that direction. They found the dragon, but the Knight had moved on to slay the ice giants at the City of Frost." Dom shuddered again, this time from the memory of the intense cold at Port Farrall. "However, the war-eagle had torn a claw fighting the dragon, and the she-fox followed the droplets of blood all the way to the City of Frost.

"When the Knight had killed the last ice giant, he knelt to clean his sword on the snow. When he stood up again, the Lady was there before him. Her mind, her body and her heart were broken in two, but her soul remembered him well. The highwaymen had not touched it because souls cannot be bought, sold or divided.

"The Knight Errant recognized her immediately, and he swept the Lost Lady up in his arms.

'_You got __that__ right,'_ Dom thought.

"They all mounted the war-eagle and flew home to the great stone house. The Knight showed the Lady how the children had escaped from the trolls and were flying in the sky, higher even than the giant eagle could go. The children could not speak their mother's language anymore, but their souls remembered her very well.

"When the Lost Lady had recovered enough to speak, the Knight asked, 'Beloved wife, who has done this to you?'

"'The highwaymen,' she responded. 'We must kill them so that they can never do this to anyone else.'

"The little she-fox showed them the way to the highwaymen's lair. The eagle killed some with his talons—" (the Ravens' side-mounted machine guns) "—the hound killed some with his teeth—" (Marcus and his penchant for using chainsaw bayonets) "—the little she-fox killed some with fire—" (Sharon's gadgets) "—the Knight killed some with his sword, and the Lady spoke to the earth, which opened up and swallowed the ones who tried to run."

_'Honey, I promise you if any of those things survived, that's exactly what we'll do.'_

"The Knight Errant and his wife and companions had killed all of the monsters and horrible creatures in the land, so he and the Lost Lady lived the rest of their lives in peace. The Lady's soul was the same, but her beauty, wisdom and courage grew back a little different than before. The silver coin turned into a lovely silver eye, and with it she saw the truth always. She made new memories with the Knight, which gave her courage. Her face took on a new beauty that no one had ever seen before, full of patterns and colors. Everyone who saw it knew she had prevailed against the highwaymen."

Dom realized with a start that a good deal of the story was originally developed to keep the nomad children from being afraid of Maria's mauled appearance.

"They spent most of their days in the garden, and their children flew overhead singing songs to them in the language of the angels. The little she-fox visited every year to make sure they were well, and then she would leave them and go into the forest.

"When the Knight and the Lady had lived many, many years, protecting the kingdom and imparting wisdom, they too grew wings and flew up into the sky to live with their son and daughter.

"But the little she-fox could never die, so she wandered the world forever, looking for another of her kind."

Dom relaxed against the wall, not realizing he'd been waiting so tensely for the end. He remembered his mother telling him that the reason fairy tales and nursery rhymes were often a little disturbing was because they prepared children for disappointment and struggle as well as adventure and wonder.

'_Well, if that's the case, then this one has it all.'_

School let out with the ringing of an old-fashioned fire bell, and the Knight Errant ran into a classroom and swept the Lost Lady up in his arms. The Lady seemed to appreciate this very much.

One phrase about their children rang in his head for days afterward.

' _... they grew wings and flew away.'_

**# # #_  
_**

**This chapter took a little longer than usual because I wanted to get the tone of the fairy tale right. If any of you have comments or suggestions on the literary style of "The Lost Lady", let me know. I am always open to [constructive] criticism!  
**


	65. E-Day plus 15 years: 2400 Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS

[Vectes Naval Base, 2400]

Marcus sat on a stool at the bar in the sergeants' mess, staring into his beer like a fortune-teller with a cup of tea leaves. He'd finally struck upon a way to let Anya go without actually telling her it was over.

Marcus was going to find her a husband.

It was a brilliant idea, even if he did say so himself. _'There's that damned pride again.'_ He'd find a suitable replacement and insert him into her life so she could get attached to him. Then it would be Anya breaking up with Marcus instead of the other way around. She'd feel a little guilty for a while about dumping him, but soon her infatuation would develop into something more permanent, and then she'd be safe and happy with someone worthy of her. Someone like Dom.

Dominic Santiago, who was everything Marcus tried and failed to be:  
A soldier who would sacrifice himself without a second thought.  
An unofficial diplomat who could see the good even in Stranded.  
A friend who was as loyal as a brother.  
A husband who loved his mutilated wife just as much today as the day he'd married her.  
A father who never stopped parenting even though his children had died.

He was the kind of man Marcus would have picked for Anya if Dom weren't already married. Marcus let out a grumbling sigh, and the corporal playing bartender watched him warily from the corner of his eye.

'_If only Carlos were alive.' _He'd seen the way Carlos had admired Anya's beauty and character. Anya Santiago would have had a nice ring to it. Actually, if Carlos hadn't died Marcus never would have been unguarded enough to seduce Anya in the first place. She'd probably be a Santiago right now, knowing Carlos's unique charm and charisma.

But Anya Santiago wasn't possible now. Anya _Cole_ might be, though. Marcus had mentally listed the pros and cons of each man he knew in their age range, and Cole came out on top in every category.

Cole was a good man: he was always cheerful, always respectful of the ladies, a dauntless protector, one of the lucky few who had a truly good heart, and he had the bottomless patience to put up with a friend like Baird for a decade and a half. He could make Anya very happy.

Hell, even Anya Carmine or Anya Stratton would be an improvement over Anya the Perpetual Concubine. Not Anya Baird, though. That sarcastic asshole wasn't good enough for her. Besides, rumor had it he was sweet on Sharon Keller. _'Poor bastard; like __that's__ ever going to happen.'_ He was as bad a match for Sharon as Marcus was for Anya.

'_I never should have let this go on for so long, Dad. Forgive me.'_ This was one of the times Marcus was relieved his father wasn't alive to see what his only child had become: a traitorous ex-convict who had sick, sick dreams about his mistress. Dad would have been so ashamed. _Mom_ would have never shown her face in public again.

So: "Anya Cole" it was. Marcus would have to find some accomplices to make this work. Dom was out. His misplaced faith in Marcus meant he believed Anya and Marcus belonged together. He'd never be able to convince Dom that she would be better off with someone else unless he confessed his horrible fantasies, and that would inevitably lead to Marcus losing the only friend he had. Dom would try to be understanding, of course, and he might be able to stick it out for a couple months, but eventually he would realize Marcus wasn't the kind of person he wanted around his mentally handicapped wife. And Marcus was afraid of what he'd become if he lost both Anya _and_ Dom.

Marcus saw Sharon come through the door and be immediately welcomed by a group of female Gears. _'And there's the little she-fox. Even Baird's called her a vixen a few times.'_ That reminded him to call Baird and tell him he'd found Sharon. Marcus waited about fifteen minutes before using his tac/com to summon the dark cloud that would surely rain on Sharon's parade.

Actually, Sharon Keller was quite smart and always willing to help. She had no emotional investment in Marcus and Anya as a couple and would doubtless find matchmaking a joy, just like everything else she was involved in. If Marcus could get Sharon on his side, he'd have all the nomads behind him, too.

As long as Marcus could somehow keep Baird's interfering nose out of this, his idea just might work. It seemed even providence was on his side, because Sharon suddenly popped up at his elbow. _'She really is a tiny little thing.'_ She barely came up to his chin even when he was sitting down.

Sharon got right to her point, which was fine with Marcus because he was terrible at making small talk.

"So, Marcus. Delta seems to end up in the middle of everything. I was thinking your squad should have its own bloodhound, and it needs to be one of the best. Locust detection, bomb sniffing, tracking, non-lethal capture, harmful intent early-warning, the works."

He covertly fisted a hand on his knee to focus his tension into that hand. "That's what Bernie called 'scenting evil', right?"

She shrugged. "In layman's terms, I suppose. They just pick up on something people give off when they mean to hurt someone."

For a long moment, the idea of being followed everywhere by an evil-hunting canine with huge teeth made his blood run cold. Then Marcus had an epiphany: if a dog could sense harmful intentions brewing, it could tip Marcus off before he hurt anyone. Giving Anya or Dom even just a ten-second head start was worth the annoyance of constantly tripping over a slobbering, whining pest that might suddenly turn on him. _'Hell,' _Marcus thought with grim humor, _'if Cole can do it, so can I.'_

"All right," he said. "We'll take one."

Sharon tapped her fingers against her thigh and stared at the far wall like she was reading a list printed on it. "Okay, those parameters narrow it down to eleven. You want Ding-Dong?"

He would _not_ go around VNB calling out that ridiculous name. "No."

"Tootsie?"

Same problem. "No."

"Buttercup?"

"No."

"Mr. Wiggles?"

"Absolutely not."

"Rookie?"

Marcus thought about it. "Yeah. Rookie will do fine."

"Good, because he already likes you anyway."

"Delta's a good bunch."

"That too, but I meant you personally. He likes you."

"You sure he can ... do all those things you mentioned?"

"Absolutely. They have to hit one hundred percent accuracy before they're cleared for field work in each area." She pointed a stern finger at him. "I have to warn you, though: service dogs want to be with their handlers all the time. That means Rookie is going to follow you everywhere unless he's penned in or tied up."

"Let's give it a trial run, then. See if he works well with Delta."

Sharon beamed. "Great! I'll let the handler know tomorrow."

"Won't the handler miss his dog?"

"Connor's already got Ding-Dong, and it's best to have a one-on-one relationship with your hound anyway."

'_Yeah, I'll bet it's friggin' terrific.'_ Marcus agreed, "All right. Meet you at Admin around oh eight hundred?"

"Deal."

Marcus nodded, effectively ending the conversation, but Sharon didn't leave.

"You need something else?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, almost shyly. "Um ... I've been meaning to ask you about your last name."

'_Shit. This is the last thing I need.'_ Marcus had never found a polite way to avoid these questions. "And?"

"I have to ask ... are you related to Elain Fenix?"

Marcus couldn't keep the surprise off his face. No one had asked him about her in twenty-odd years. "She's my mother."

"Whaaat?" Sharon looked like she'd just met a rock star, but the admiration wasn't for him. "Seriously? You're the son of Elain Fenix?" She practically hopped up and down with excitement. The switch from 'leader of men' to 'giddy fangirl' was startling. "Did you go on expeditions with her? What was her lab like? What was _she_ like?"

Marcus blinked at her enthusiastic gesturing. "Why the sudden interest?"

"Oh, it's not sudden. Elain Fenix was my hero when I was little. I wanted to be just like her. I had the tan fedora and the butterfly net and everything." Sharon blushed a little. "I loved bugs and ... well, that's why JEEB looks like a cockroach. And, um ..." She dug her toe into the sawdust on the floor. "I gave my daughter 'Elain' for her middle name." Sharon smiled apologetically. "Sorry, it's just ... your mom was brilliant. And beautiful, and elegant, and adventurous. The quintessential woman scientist."

"That she was." He felt an unaccustomed surge of the good kind of pride. "She definitely was."

Sharon raised her glass to him with a grin. "To Elain, the Beetle-Stalker."

Marcus surprised himself by clinking glasses with hers. "To Mom."

Sharon took a dainty sip and Marcus drained half his glass. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but Sam Byrne shouted across the sergeants' mess, "Sharon, come on, we're all here and ready!"

"Okay!" Sharon gave Marcus one last smile. "Later, you'll have to tell me what kind of equipment she had in her lab."

"All right." Thinking about his mother leaning over the light-table scrutinizing moth wings didn't bring back unpleasant feelings like he expected. _'She can ask all the questions she likes,' _he decided_. 'All this time and you've still got a fan, Mom.'_

Marcus put his troubles aside for a moment and just basked in the glow of Sharon's admiration for his mother.

He was startled out of this reverie when Sharon hopped up onto the bar.

**# # #**

**Just FYI, the characters' looks changed a lot over the course of the games and in the books, so here are the faces I'm basing the characters on:  
GOW2: Marcus, Dom, Maria (the photo), Cole, Prescott.  
GOW3: Baird, Hoffman,**** Sam, Bernie, Dizzy.  
GOW3 Civilian Multiplayer Skins: Alex Brand, Anya.  
RAAM's Shadow: Jace  
Sharon: A lot like Anya's face from GOW1, but with her own coloring.  
**


	66. E-Day plus 15 years: 2430 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS

[Vectes Naval Base, 2430]

When Sharon didn't want to be found, she was like a wisp of smoke.

After their heated exchange she had bolted out the door and disappeared into the warren of streets before Baird could catch her. He'd tried to use DENIS and JEEB to track her down, but all they'd found was the command strip she usually wore on her forearm, tucked into a case in a nomad tent. Baird had spent the rest of the day searching possible locations for her, but Vectes Naval Base was a large facility with innumerable places to hide.

He couldn't concentrate on work while Sharon was wandering in a daze through a city with Stranded lurking everywhere. She was a scrappy fighter but very petite. If more than one assailant caught her off guard, she would be in big trouble. Bernie had been hunted down by just three men, and Sharon had sniped more than a few deserving Stranded herself. There could be someone—or several someones—out there with a serious grudge against her.

Baird had been running all over VNB chasing that impossible woman for over nine hours now. She wasn't with the nomads, in the school, the mess hall, her quarters—Who had she sweet-talked to get a private room, and was it more than just talk?—the CIC, Admin, the sergeants' mess, Sharle's office, _Sovereign_, Dom and Maria's apartment, or with anyone on Delta. Baird was reasonably sure she was still on base because she hadn't been signed out at one of the checkpoints. Although, she _was_ an infiltration expert, so she might have managed to sneak out. Or maybe she'd just bribed someone to let her pass. But bribed with what? She had no valuable possessions besides tech, and she'd never let any of that go.

Which left sexual favors. Baird ground his teeth together as he stalked toward the sergeants' mess once Marcus had finally spotted her. _'No doubt Sharon could get anything she wanted for one of those.' _She'd already been offered money by three different guys, for COG's sake. Any feelings of vindication he'd gotten from hearing her admission that the marriage had been tantamount to prostitution hadn't lasted more than a few minutes. He'd realized if she thought she was already damaged goods, she might just decide to continue on that career path. Baird would be damned if he let his ex-girlfriend become a hooker. That would further stain all his stockpiled memories of her, effectively making his life even more miserable than before.

He'd start by finding her, and continue by ... not calling her a whore quite so much. It might become a self-fulfilling prophecy if he put that idea in her head one too many times.

When Baird walked into the sergeants' mess, there was a swell of applause. Not for him, obviously, but for the brown-haired vixen on top of the bar who had just finished saying something. She had the entire crowd captivated, even Marcus. The sergeant was wedged in the farthest corner of the bar but still giving Sharon all his attention. He looked almost amused.

Someone yanked Baird down into one of the few unoccupied seats with a hiss of, "Sit down, man, you're not transparent." It was Carmine, who shared a table with Jace. "This is just getting good."

'_If she starts doing a striptease I will __throttle__ her!'_

"Do the third one, Sharon!" Sam Byrne called out.

Baird was relieved to find Sharon had been holding Poetry Appreciation Night for Drunks, because they all seemed to know the words she was going to say.* She swaggered along the wooden bar gesturing with a nearly-full beer stein and shouting in a sing-song rhythm:

"My own dear love, he is strong and bold  
And he cares not what comes after.  
His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,  
And his eyes are lit with laughter.  
He is jubilant as a flag unfurled,  
Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.  
My own dear love, he is all my world—"

She pointed at Sam, Alex and Bernie, who yelled the last line:

"AND I WISH I'D NEVER MET HIM!"

Sharon sashayed up and down the bar with one hand on her hip and the stein held high in the other. Obviously the bartender was enjoying the view because whenever she slopped beer over the side of the glass, he simply wiped it up and kept smiling.

"My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet,  
And a wild young wood-thing bore him.  
The ways are fair to his roaming feet,  
And the skies are sunlit for him.  
As sharply sweet to my heart he seems  
As the fragrance of blue-bellés.  
My own dear love, he is all my dreams—"

All of the female Gears roared:

"AND I WISH HE WERE IN PELLES!"

Even the men were hooting and clapping by the time she launched into the last stanza.

"My love runs by like a day in Brume,  
And he makes no friends of sorrows.  
He'll tread his galloping rigadoon  
In the pathway of the 'morrows.  
He'll live his days where the sunbeams start,  
Nor could storm or wind uproot him.  
My own dear love, he is all my heart—"

This time both genders raised their drinks:

"AND I WISH SOMEBODY'D SHOOT HIM!"

Cole had come in the door during the second stanza. "We need to get her back to her quarters," he suggested. "She's drunk."

"That's not Drunk Sharon," Baird clarified. "Drunk Sharon would be hanging upside down from the rafters." He gestured toward the beer stein. "I bet that's not even hers."

"If she's not drunk, then what variety of Sharon is she?" Carmine sounded genuinely curious.

"This is just Lightly Buzzed Sharon." Baird nodded when Carmine raised his eyebrows. "You have no idea what a gigantic can of worms opened when she came back to the COG."

Just then Sharon noticed the men at Carmine's table. "Cole!" she yelled delightedly, completely ignoring Baird. "I knew you'd come!" The little nutjob set her stein down on the bar and ran down the length of the wood. Cole got his arms up to catch her just as she launched herself off the end of the bar like a flying squirrel.

"Oof!" Cole exaggerated when she smacked into his chest. "I think you've put on a few ounces, Firecracker."

"Look who's talking, Chubby; I think you may have some real coal in your pockets." She gave Cole a sparkling grin she seemed to reserve just for him.

"Naw, Sharon," Carmine leered, "he's just really happy to see you."

"Har de har har." But Sharon was smiling at him as Cole set her down. "You want the rest of that beer, Carmine? It's gotten warm."

"I'll drink it any way I can get it, baby."

She laughed and went to get it. She still hadn't so much as made eye contact with Baird.

"Baird, you want a beer?" Cole asked as he slapped Baird's shoulder.

"Vodka," he growled in answer.

Cole's eyebrows went way up. "You know Dizzy makes that stuff, right? It's one hundred proof."

"Vodka," Baird repeated. _'I do __not__ have a drinking problem.'_ He noticed at least five guys checking out her ass, including Carmine_. 'Not yet, anyway.'_

"All right. It's your liver, man."

Sharon came back with the warm beer. "You sure you want this? It's warmer than I'd thought."

"Give it here," Carmine said with a grin. He patted his knee. "And have a seat; there aren't any chairs left in this place since Baird and Cole showed up."

Sharon's face was wary for a moment as she stared at the proffered knee. No one else would have caught it, but she glanced in Baird's direction, then lifted her chin defiantly and primly sat down on Carmine's thigh. Carmine beamed. Sharon looked smug. Baird started grinding his teeth again. Offering her his chair would be so out of character for him that people would get the wrong idea, and there really wasn't anywhere for her to sit except on someone's lap.

'_What the hell's wrong with standing, or leaning Cole's shoulder? Well, I shouldn't be surprised she'd take any chance to get her hooks in some new sucker.'_

He couldn't protest on the grounds that she was his best friend's widow because no one knew the whole story yet. The official line was that he and a female classmate had built a robot in high school and after graduation she took sole custody of it. No one but Cole knew Baird and Sharon had been a couple, and for some undoubtedly selfish reason Sharon hadn't been telling. It stung a little—okay, it stung a _lot_—that not a single person even _suspected_ Sharon had had a romantic relationship with him. But if he set that record straight, everyone would know he was jilted for another man and he'd never hear the end of it. Especially from the people he'd pissed off. Which was just about everyone.

"So, Firecracker," Cole used his nickname for her as he came back with the drinks. "Where you been all day?" He knew Baird had been looking for her all afternoon and evening. Baird could always count on Cole for an assist.

Sharon waved vaguely. "Machine-y stuff. Testing the mag fields on people's armor, drafting schematics for napalm cannons for the APCs and whatnot."

"Thanks for mine, by the way." Carmine bounced Sharon on his knee until she had to grab onto him or fall off. She was laughing, of course. "Makes me feel almost invincible." Baird slammed back his vodka shot and made a tremendous effort not to comment on that.

"That reminds me," Cole said. "How come you haven't been wearing your helmet inside lately?"

Carmine became very interested in the beer Sharon had brought him. He mumbled something into it as he took a drink.

"What?" Cole asked. "I didn't hear you."

Carmine sighed and his eyes flicked over to the glum sergeant in the corner. "Marcus said I'm not allowed to wear it inside anymore."

Cole cocked his head in confusion. "Why's that?"

Carmine's eyes slid to Sharon. "Ummm..."

Sharon held up her hands. "I get it. Squad business. I'll go sit on somebody else's lap."

Her "chair" mock-frowned, but let her go. Sharon waltzed over to the bar and started chatting up the bartender.

"Come on, son. Cough it up," Cole instructed.

Carmine sighed. "Dom found out I've been using the telemetry feature to find out women's measurements. He tattled on me and Marcus tore me a new one. Now I'm only allowed to wear it outside."

Cole had started laughing after the first sentence. "You dog! No wonder Marcus let you have it. That's almost as bad as peeking into a locker room." His laugh tapered off to a chuckle and he pointed a large finger at Carmine. "If I catch you doing that again, Marcus will be the least of your problems, you feel me?" He said it in a buddy-buddy tone, but every guy at the table knew he was serious. Momma Cole's boy was very protective of women.

"Like I told Marcus, I've quit." Carmine couldn't help adding, "I know all the ladies' numbers already."

"I thought you said you only do that to hot women?" Jace queried.

"Most women _are_ hot."

"Seriously? Even ... " —Jace scanned the mess hall for the most unattractive female he could find— "... her?" The forty-something Gear had a mohawk with more than a few gray hairs, a tattoo of a disemboweled Brumak emblazoned across her chest and a nose that had obviously been broken multiple times and badly re-set.

"Hot," Carmine declared. "Just look at those legs. And the part where her legs meet her back. That whole area, really."

Baird had to admit, she did have nice legs. Not as nice as Sharon's, but still nice. Sharon might be short but she had the scaled-down figure of a much taller woman.

"Seriously, Carmine, what is your secret? Nobody can juggle that many girlfriends." Jace was almost pleading. Women knew their value in this apocalyptic society and they were _very_ choosy about partners. Seventeen-year-old boys didn't get nearly as much action as the more "seasoned" men who knew how to please. Jace was almost definitely still a virgin.

"A gentleman never tells." Carmine smirked.

"Can you be a gentleman _and_ a man-whore at the same time?"

"Apparently." Carmine went back to scanning the women in the bar. The table fell silent for a bit as the men sipped their drinks and perused the crowd for a minute.

Baird had imprinted on Sharon's looks so early in his life that she was the benchmark by which he measured the attractiveness of other women. Anya was jaw-droppingly beautiful when you first saw her, but her ice-queen looks soon paled with familiarity whereas Sharon got more good-looking the longer you knew her. Sam Byrne was an unbelievably garish tomboy, way too tall and covered in swirling black tattoos. Alex Brand was just a bitch, not to mention the over-muscled legs and arms. In fact, almost all of the female Gears were tall women who packed on so much muscle that they started looking more and more like men, especially because of the way the weight and bulk of armor made them practically waddle along. _'Yeah, that crab walk is real sexy.'_ Sharon swayed like a dancer when she moved, just like when _She has her head tucked under his chin and one hand on the back of his shoulder. He has the fingers of her other hand laced through his own as they are slow-dancing in the hallway outside the gym on the night of the homecoming dance. Sharon's hair smells like that freesia shampoo. She stopped wearing perfume years ago because Damon likes the shampoo's fragrance more. She also wears that lipgloss every day because he told her he likes the taste. Sharon raises her face for a kiss, and her hands slide up his chest to pull his head down—_

Baird stood up so quickly he almost knocked over his chair. "I'm getting another drink," he declared. When he came back, Cole was clearly giving Sam Byrne the eye. Sam didn't seem to mind that one bit.

"Oh, God, no," Baird said as he reclaimed his seat. "Say it ain't so, Cole."

Cole gave him a lop-sided grin. "What? She's a mighty fine woman."

Baird pointed with the hand that was holding the shot glass. "That's not a woman, that's a man with double X chromosomes." Jace and Carmine laughed uproariously.

"You go say that in front of Sam and Bernie's likely to punch you out again."

"For the last time, she did not punch me out! It was one sock in the jaw and I didn't pass out, so there!" Jace and Carmine were laughing even harder now. Baird glared daggers at them.

He was about to say something caustic but he saw Sharon across the room playing "navy chess" with a group of male Gears that included Holt and Innerman. "She better not kill too many brain cells with that crap," he said to Cole. "Sharon can't hold hard liquor and we need her to keep cranking out the tech."

Jace screwed up his face. "I'd think you wouldn't be happy about sharing the spotlight, Baird. I mean, what can Sharon do that you can't?"

"I'm a linear thinker; Sharon is a lateral thinker."

"I don't get it."

"It's like this: if you give me a bunch of machinery and some tools and ask me to make an assault vehicle, I'll build you a tank. If you give Sharon a bunch of machinery and some tools and ask her to make an assault vehicle, there's an eighty percent chance she'll build a tank and a twenty percent chance she'll figure out how to turn bananas into gasoline."

"I get it. So you can ask Sharon to do something and you'll get results, but they won't always be what you wanted."

"That's exactly what it's like," Baird said darkly. He drank his shot of vodka in one go.

Carmine was trying to disguise his inspection of Sharon by sipping his beer, but nobody was buying it.

Jace followed his gaze. "I don't get this whole 'Sharon' thing the guys are talking about. I mean, she's pretty, but she's no Anya."

Baird was offended that the woman he'd once wanted to spend his life with was being called plain. It was like an insult to his taste in women. He fairly snapped, "Yeah, well, you haven't heard her read assembly instructions out loud. Nobody can say 'Insert Tab A into Slot B' quite like Sharon."

Jace looked thoughtful. "Reeeally."

"She's too old for you," Baird put in quickly. "And way out of your league, kid."

The young Gear sighed despondently. "Yeah, you're probably right." Then he smirked at Baird. "But she's way out of _your_ league too, so we're even."

"What the hell do you mean, she's out of my league?" Baird scowled. Cole suddenly found the Locust cleavers mounted over the bar very, very interesting.

"Easy, Baird," Cole muttered out the side of his mouth.

Carmine laughed. "No way you could get a woman like that. Not with your crotchety old man attitude. Women like Sharon go for the funny, cute guys." Carmine stood up and spread his arms. "Like me!" He straightened his shirt and set his sights on the chess table. "Watch and learn, Jace. I'm goin' in."

The shot glass shattered in Baird's grip. No one heard the crunch over the dozen rowdy conversations in the bar. Luckily it didn't slice his palm or it would have hobbled his mechanical ability for days. Baird stood and squeezed between Cole and the wall to toss the shards in the corner trash can. From this angle he could see Carmine hitting on Sharon.

Something red-hot burst into flame inside Baird's chest. _'Whore!'_ yelled a voice in his head. With great difficulty Baird shoved that remnant of his teenage self back down into the depths of his mind where it belonged. _'Stop screwing with me, Sharon!' _he mentally bellowed at her.

He'd worked so hard at remaking himself as "Baird the Soldier", and here she was, constantly reminding him of his old life. It was like she'd come back from the dead and brought "Damon the Teenager" with her.

Baird's lip curled. _'Not happening, bitch.'_ He started to take a step forward and then Cole's broad chest blocked his view.

"Just chill, man. She's not going to go for Carmine." Cole's expression was all business.

Baird leaned to the side to peek around him. "Don't tell me to chill, you know I hate that." All he could see was that Carmine had his hand on Sharon's shoulder.

"Baby, you are going to _give yourself away_ if you don't dial it down a little."

Baird refocused on the mountain of a man who had him penned in a corner.

"You mean my history with her?"

"I mean your 'right now' with her." Cole kept his voice low.

Baird squinted suspiciously. "What are you trying to imply, Cole?"

"I'm implying you like her and it's starting to show."

"The hell I do. I just don't want her sleeping around in case people find out about—" Baird cut off because his voice was rising, and he definitely did not want anyone to overhear. "Can you imagine the ribbing I'd get? I'd never live it down. Everyone seeing my former you-know-what in Carmine's harem would be more ammunition than if she'd gone gay." He curled his lip again. "Besides, Carmine's such a man-slut he's probably crawling with STDs."

"That's a good point," Cole conceded, "but she's still not going to go for him. What say we just go back to sitting at our table and watch her shoot him down, huh? Won't that be fun?" Anyone else would have been patronizing him with that last remark, but Baird knew Cole wasn't like that.

He tried to relax by breathing deeply. "Fine, we'll go sit and watch. But I am still going to pound the shit out of him if they leave together."

Cole shook his head as they sat back down. "Not gonna happen."

"What's not gonna happen?" Jace asked curiously. The kid was eager as a puppy to stick his nose in everything. "What were you guys talking about?"

Cole covered quickly. "We were going to bet on whether or not Carmine can get Sharon in bed. Smart money's on _No_. Baird agrees with me, so it's no bet. You want to lay some ration slips on Carmine?"

Jace watched Carmine work his mojo. "You know what? Yeah. I think he can do it. The man's got skills."

"Okay, so that's two to one voting against Carmine. Say ... two slips each?" Jace nodded. Baird grunted his agreement. "That means you'll get four slips if you win, and if you lose you give each of us two."

"Deal." Jace shook on it with Cole. Baird ignored the kid when he extended his hand, slumped down in his chair with his arms across his chest.

"You'd better be right, Cole," he murmured.

**# # #**

**This chapter was getting too long, and I like to break the story into readable chunks, so:  
To Be Continued.**

*** The un-Gearsified poem is "Love Song" by Dorothy Parker.**

**If you caught the "Firefly" reference, you're my hero.**


	67. 1 year 9 weeks before E-Day: 2240 Baird

1 YEAR, 9 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Halvo Bay, Tyrus: 2240 hours]

James felt like the lowest life-form on the planet for being in love with his best friend's girl.

He tried very hard to concentrate on the tall blonde female who was his date for the homecoming dance. She was smart, like everyone who was accepted to the Octus Academy for Technology and Science. Unlike most of the other students at OATS, she wasn't rich, having won an 80% scholarship for her academic record. She was also very pretty, with cascading blonde ringlets and a truly impressive figure ... what was her name again?

As per usual, James had asked the first girl who caught his eye because it didn't really matter who he went with. He didn't really know this blonde beauty, but she'd been impressed by his social status and money. James made sure to spend plenty of it on her as a sort of pre-emptive apology for not continuing their relationship. Because he couldn't. Not until he figured how to get over Sharon.

Sharon had been Damon's built-in date since the three of them were just eight years old. James still couldn't believe his frigging bad luck that Damon had snagged Sharon five years before either of them was actually old enough to be interested in girls. Or maybe it was Sharon who had snagged Damon. James couldn't really remember because it had been so long ago.

The happy couple was showing off their ballroom dancing skills about twenty feet away. James tried to keep his back to them as much as possible while twirling his own date around the gym floor, but eventually the dance always turned him around again. Damon and Sharon weren't doing the hip-grinding, arm-flailing club dancing most of the other students were making fools of themselves by executing. But between the sinuous movement of her spine and the looks she was giving her boyfriend, she might as well have been an exotic dancer using Damon as a pole. Sooner or later every guy—and a few girls—noticed her In That Way; Sharon just had that kind of sensual presence, even though it was only directed at Damon. But none of the admirers' dates actually got jealous. It was clear she only had eyes for Damon, and she was so unrelentingly charming and friendly to both genders that no one could stay angry at her. That was the main reason none of the three's parents knew that Sharon and Damon were dating; nobody at school, including the teachers, would have tattled on Sharon. Damon, yes; Sharon, no. Plus everybody loves a forbidden romance.

Everybody except James. It was only loyalty to his best friend that prevented him from letting the cat out of the bag. He hadn't known how he felt about Sharon until the end of sophomore year. Their school's Thrashball team made the winning touchdown in the championship game (which was astounding because a school full of science geeks usually didn't turn out a team that good) and Sharon had thrown her arms around Damon and then James. For a moment, James almost hadn't let go. Having her pressed against him felt so right that he nearly kissed her then and there, in front of Damon and everybody.

It had scared the shit out of him. Partly because Damon was a hyper-jealous boyfriend who would break every bone in James's body if he knew, but also because that moment made him realize that for at least the past two years he'd been hanging out with them more to be with Sharon than his best friend. Who does that? What kind of friend did that make him? What kind of _person_, for crying out loud?

James had done his best to excuse himself from their presence outside of school for about a month, thinking that would help. It didn't. If anything, absence made the heart grow fonder. She consumed his thoughts, showed up in his dreams—innocent and otherwise—and it physically hurt not to be around her. God, he was going to have to move away, wasn't he? Marry someone like the girl in his arms and go far, far away. Kashkur or Sarfuth, maybe even the South Islands. He could use his degree in zoology (all OATS students graduated with honorary Bachelor's degrees from LaCroix University) as an excuse to go somewhere remote and study uncharted ecosystems for a while. Hopefully until he became attached to whomever was his wife. That was the plan, anyway. For now, he had to stick it out one more year in Halvo Bay.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Damon and Sharon slip out of the gym into the hallway. Probably to go pick the lock on some upstairs broom closet. James's stomach clenched up into a tight knot. How was he going to keep it together, knowing they were going at it like a couple of tigers just yards over his head? The fancy hors d'oeuvres and champagne in his stomach threatened to make a reappearance.

"Mind if I go to the restroom for a minute?" James politely requested of the blonde.

"Of course not," she answered, still basking in fanciful dreams about marrying the richest bachelor in Tyrus. "I'll go chat with my girlfriends for a bit." She winked at him. "Hurry back soon."

"Will do." James gave her one of his patented Ladies' Man smiles. She had the good grace to blush a little bit.

When he got out into the hallway, however, Damon and Sharon were sitting on the staircase at the far end, obviously listening to the slow love song wafting out from the gym. Damon sat on the third step with Sharon one step lower, leaning back against his stomach with her arms along his thighs, looking for all the world like a queen on a throne. She had her head tilted back against his shoulder and Damon was carefully smoothing her hair behind her ear and on down her neck. Her eyes fluttered closed as James watched from the shadows at the other end of the hall.

This was the reason James could never spill the beans to their parents. If they'd been having a purely sexual relationship he might have dropped a few hints to Sharon's folks and they could have put an end to it. But Damon and Sharon were without a doubt deeply in love, and they had been for a long time. "True love" sounded like a cliché unless you had seen them in their most transparent moments, clear of any traces of lust or humor. They belonged together, and James knew it. He'd never seen a couple so devoted to each other, not even his own parents.

If Sharon had ever looked at James that way, even once, he would have married her in a heartbeat. But she wouldn't. James might eventually be able to get over her, move on and love someone else, but these two ... these two would never feel this way about any other person, ever. They had a rare thing, something James wanted desperately for himself. Hopefully he'd find it someday.

Just as he was about to move away, James heard Damon say to Sharon, "I have something for you."

'_Oh, God, no,'_ James thought. _'I can't watch this.'_ But his feet refused to move. His body was frozen in some masochistic rigor, unable to tear his eyes away from this awful scene.

Sharon tilted her head back to look at Damon. "Oh, yeah? What's the occasion? You already gave me a homecoming gift."

"Well, I meant to give this to you on my birthday, but I didn't quite have all the money saved up yet."

James had to lean against the wall or fall down.

Damon pulled a necklace out of his pocket. He dropped it into her waiting hand and let the chain pool in her palm. Sharon picked up the pendant for inspection.

"It's a cog!" she exclaimed in delight. Sharon loved the cog symbol, the idea that every person had an important role in a great society that couldn't function without their one little piece turning.

"Titanium," Damon explained. "The ball-bearing chain, too."

"Oh, I love it!" Sharon threw her arms around Damon's waist. He hugged her back, kissing her hair and murmuring something James couldn't hear. Probably some version of _I love you_.

James started to feel dizzy.

"Put it on for me?" Sharon asked. She gave him the necklace and lifted her hair while he fastened the catch. The tiny cog dangled perfectly just above her cleavage. She stroked it with one hand and sighed. "Gorgeous."

Damon cleared his throat.

James slid down the wall because his legs wouldn't hold him up anymore.

"I was thinking," his best friend said, "you could wear it for about a year and then have it melted down into something else."

Sharon furrowed her brow. Or at least that's what James thought she did. His vision had started to go double. "Something else? What could be better than a cog?"

Damon bit his lip. "Well, I figure if one circle is good then two is twice as nice."

James hear Sharon's breath catch. "Two ... circles?"

"Rings," Damon confirmed. "Titanium ones." He looked nervous, which was ridiculous because of course Sharon would accept his proposal. They'd had an "understanding" since they were thirteen; this was just making it official, even if Sharon had to wear her engagement ring around her neck disguised as a chain and pendant instead of on her finger.

Sharon broke into a huge grin. "What the hell took you so long?"

Damon laughed in relief. "Can I take that as a yes?"

"Abso-frickin-lutely," she said. Their long kiss was a little hampered by the fact that they couldn't stop smiling. There was a lot of giggling from both of them as James hauled himself off to the bathroom. Luckily the nausea was all in his head, so he didn't actually toss his cookies (actually very expensive éclairs catered from some snobby restaurant).

When he returned to the gym, Damon and Sharon raced up to him with shining eyes and told him the news.

"And of course you have to be the best man," Damon added. "Wouldn't be right without you. Obviously we'll have to elope because of our parents, so you'll have to come with us."

"That's fantastic!" James lied. "On your birthday, right?"

"The minute he turns eighteen," Sharon declared, her eyes and teeth glittering brighter even than her crystal-studded cream and gold ball gown.

Damon laughed. "Maybe not the exact minute. That was three o'clock in the morning."

"All right," Sharon said, faking reluctance. "Eight o'clock. No later."

"Deal," Damon agreed.

"Deal," said James.

Sharon leapt on Damon with a joyful shriek and he swung her around in a few circles that turned into a waltz. James watched them whirl away, their future secure and bright.

When James's date suggested they "go somewhere a little more private," he took her back to the guest house on his family's estate. The first hour was quite awkward and frustrating until James finally gave up and pretended she was Sharon; then things progressed very quickly. As his date snuggled up to him, smiling and satisfied, in his head James apologized profusely to Damon for using Sharon's image to get off. Later while the girl was deeply asleep James went through her purse and found her driver's license. "Callista Anne Davies". James sighed wearily and put the card back in his new girlfriend's wallet. Within a year she would be "Callista Anne Keller", if he did the right thing.

And James always did the right thing.

**# # #**

**Just as an aside, when I wrote the scene on the stairs the love song that came to mind was "Come Away With Me" by Norah Jones.  
**


	68. E-Day plus 15 years: 0010 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS

[Vectes Naval Base, 0010 hours]

Carmine wasn't having any luck with Sharon. The first time she'd gotten him involved in a conversation with a third person and then slipped away, he'd known he was going to strike out. He couldn't give up yet, though: Jace, Baird and Cole were watching him like hawks. He'd been so sure he was Sharon's type, but here she was, neatly evading him for the fourth time in an hour. Due to "Navy Chess" she'd had more than a few drinks (it was basically Checkers with shot glasses for pieces that you drank when you captured them), so he'd thought this would be a little easier. When she took her eighth shot of thirty-proof whatever, he knew it was over; she was well and truly drunk now, and Carmine had a rule about not taking advantage of ladies who were three sheets to the wind. Besides, getting puked on in the middle of sex was not how he liked to spend his evenings.

He knew there was something off about her tonight when she reached for a ninth shot.

"Hey, whoa," Carmine said, gently wresting the glass from her fingers. "I think that's about enough, sweet pea."

"Hmmm?" Sharon said, squinting at him. "No, I don't think it's nearly enough."

He crossed his arms on the table and leaned close to her to ask privately, "What's up with you tonight, Sharon?"

A wave of emotions washed over her face, all of them in the depression-like range. "I miss my family," she confessed quietly.

"Your family?"

"Yes. Especially my daughter." Sharon stared at the tabletop like it was a gravestone.

"Ah." He didn't have to ask if she was dead; most people were. Out of the expansive Carmine family tree only Clayton, Daniel and their mother were left.

"And my boyfriend."

"You mean your husband? I heard you were a widow."

"Nope. Husband was marr'ge of c'nvenience." Sharon was starting to have trouble with pronunciation. Definitely drunk, then.

"What happened to the boyfriend?"

She tried to grab the shot glass and Carmine pushed it out of her reach. Sharon sighed. "Left 'im."

"For the husband?"

"Yep." She stared at the glass. Carmine gave it to a passing soldier. Sharon made a disgruntled noise.

Carmine put his large hand over one of Sharon's. "I'm really sorry, honey."

"Th'nks. Me too."

They sat there for a bit, an oasis of quiet in the rowdy bar. If Sharon didn't burn off a good deal of that alcohol before closing, Carmine was going to make sure she got to her quarters okay. Providing she remembered where it was.

Then again, there was a not-bad-looking woman who'd been giving him The Look all evening. She caught his eye again and smiled flirtatiously. Thirty-eight, twenty-seven, forty-two, if he remembered right. Carmine had a weakness for well-rounded posteriors and a pack of condoms that was burning a hole in his pocket. Doc Hayman always made sure he had plenty, bless her heart.

"Say, Sharon," he began.

"Hmmm?"

"You have somebody lined up to take you home?"

"Oh, no thanks, Carmine. I think I'll stay a while longer."

That would have been strike five if he weren't trying to pawn her off on someone else.

"Actually, I was thinking about asking Cole to keep an eye on you."

Sharon smiled dopily. "I like Cole. He's nice."

"He's the best. I'm gonna go ask him, okay?"

"Okay."

Carmine went back to his original table.

"You strike out?" Cole asked with a huge grin. Baird was slouched way down in his chair and Jace had his fingers crossed for some reason.

"Hey, man, nobody bats a thousand," Carmine freely admitted.

Jace groaned and reached into his pocket. "Aw, man," he complained as he tore off a couple of slips from his ration packet. "Carmine, you just cost me four days' worth of coffee and fresh fruit." Gears might get basic foodstuffs in practically unlimited quantities, but little luxuries like spices, condiments, "freshies", coffee, tea and sugar were still strictly rationed. Unless you were a Santiago, of course, but nobody begrudged Dom and Maria a little favoritism from the mess sergeants.

"Sorry, kid," Carmine apologized as Jace handed out the slips. Cole wore a smug grin and Baird was as close to looking pleased as Carmine had ever seen him. "But the little lady is pretty liquored up and I don't swing that way. Cole, you mind seeing her home? I've ... uh, got some business to attend to." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Miss 38-27-42.

"Oh, this is not _fair_!" Jace was definitely whining now. "I lost four slips betting on you and you're _still_ gonna get laid?" Jace got up, grumbling, and slammed his empty glass on the bar to be cleaned. They could tell he really was a little ticked off because he didn't say _Good night_ when he left_._

"Ah, well," Carmine shrugged. "If I'd known there were rations riding on this, I might have tried a little harder."

"I dunno, baby," Cole said, rocking his chair back against the wall. "Looked to me like you were givin' it all you got."

"She's having a bad night," Carmine protested. "Missing her family and such. She's a little too depressed to respond favorably to my unique charisma. Next time, boys," he swore to them. "Next time you'll see." Cole shook his head in amused doubt and Baird went back to wearing his usual sullen expression.

Carmine saw his target pausing at the exit and giving him an expectant look. "Gotta go," he said to excuse himself. "Duty calls."

"I thought it was pronounced 'booty', not 'duty'," Cole shot at him as he left. Carmine waved a _Yeah, yeah_ gesture at them over his shoulder.

"See?" Cole said. "I told you he's not her type."

"Uh-huh," Baird said skeptically, but his expression no longer telegraphed _Impending assault charges_.

"Yup," Cole said confidently. "I think she prefers blonds."

Baird snorted before he took a sip of his beer. Cole had persuaded him to switch from vodka. "Yeah, right." But his eyes were locked onto Sharon.

"Well," Cole said as he stood, brushing imaginary dust off his pants as he stood up. "I think it's about time someone took Sharon home." He stood staring at Baird very obviously.

"What, me?" Baird scowled. "You do it. Or just call one of the nomads."

"Naw, man, she's upset. She needs a friend to help her out."

"You're her friend."

"I've known her a couple months. You've known her most of your lives." He gave Baird's shoulder a gentle shove. "I think she'll be a lot more comfortable with her childhood friend seeing her in this state than some guy she practically just met."

It was true that she was way past Fun Drunk Sharon and into a phase he'd rarely seen: Maudlin Sharon. She was extremely vulnerable to suggestion right now and he wouldn't put it past some of the younger Gears to rationalize away date rape as mere 'drunken sex'. He sighed, knowing he was her best option, especially if Cole wasn't going to help.

"Fine, I'll get her back to her place. But I'm not holding a bucket for her all night long. If she turns out to be that far gone, I'm calling you for upchuck duty, got it?"

Cole nodded contentedly. "Got it." He took his tac/com out of his pocket and re-inserted it in his ear. "I'll keep this on for an hour, and if you haven't called me by then I'll assume everything's cool."

"Fine. Go." Baird started to wind his way through the tables as Cole left. The bar was emptying out and Cole wasn't leaving with Sam, so things were looking up.

Or they were until Sharon teetered past a couple of young Gears with another beer she'd wheedled out of someone. The nearest one gave her ass a hard smack and she hopped sideways with a squeak of surprise. The Gear said, "Damn, girl, you fill out those—"

Nobody would ever know exactly what she was filling out because the side of Baird's hand chopped him right in the voicebox.

The handsy Gear fell forward onto his knees, holding his throat with both hands and wheezing like Hayman crossing the finish line of a marathon.

"What the hell did you do that for?" his friend demanded as he knelt beside his fallen comrade to see if he was getting any air.

Baird snarled, "I've known this woman since we were seven years old and I'll be damned if I stand by and let him feel up the little girl I used to race on the monkey bars, that's why!"

Murmurs of _Ohhh_ and _Yeah, I'd probably do that too_ rippled through the remaining patrons. All those who'd risen for the opportunity to beat the shit out of Smartass Baird sat down disappointed. Baird turned to Sharon, who was blinking at him owlishly and standing upright only because she'd fallen against the bar.

He jerked his head at the door. "Come on, Sharon. Time to go home."

"Ohhh-kay," she agreed. She took two steps forward with her arms held out like she was grabbing a beach ball. He caught her just as she tripped over her own feet.

Baird lifted her onto his hip like she was a child and left the bar and the lecherous prick behind. It was weird, he thought as he carried her down the dark street, he'd been able to carry her when they were kids, too, but with the amount of muscle he had now she was light as a down pillow. _'Hell, my __armor__ weighs more than this.'_ Looking at her from five inches higher than before was strange enough, but he hadn't realized until now just how much he'd changed from his former appearance. The extra development had been a seven-year process, slow enough to feel almost natural. But the blast from the past slumped against his chest was the same size as before, making him feel like a giant in contrast. Even back then she'd made him feel tall because there had been a six-inch difference in height, but looking at how much acreage of her back his hand now covered brought home just how much he had changed.

'_I don't fit her anymore,' _he thought. _'We're too different. It's a wonder we can work together at all.'_ Baird deftly side-stepped that train of thought and just concentrated on not dropping her limp body. She'd either passed out or fallen asleep right after he picked her up, but she woke when he shifted her weight more securely on his forearm.

"Who're you?" she asked accusingly.

"What do you mean, who am I?"

"I meeeannn ..." She paused for so long he thought she'd fallen asleep again. "Who's this person who is the one who is c'rrying me?"

She was so out of it that she didn't recognize his altered face and physique. Odd, because he'd just been thinking about that.

"It's me, Baird." Sharon tipped back her head and squinted woozily.

"Who?"

"Damon. It's me, Damon." He shivered for no reason.

"Bullshhhit. Damon's smaller." She poked his chest. "An' less bumpy. And he duzzen smell like old gym socks."

He sighed in exasperation. "I grew a bunch since we were young, and I'd like to see _you_ find a dry-cleaner at the ass end of the world."

"Mebbee I will." She hiccupped and rested her forehead against his neck again. "He duzzen have five 'clock shadow, eith'r. And the skies're sunlit for him." Then she was out again.

She stayed out all the way back to the closet-like room she had somehow managed to get in the former single-officers' housing. Now it was mostly for childless married couples. He jiggled her to get her attention.

"Sharon. Hey, Sharon."

"Mmm?"

"Keys?"

"Mmmnnn," she grumbled. "Shave 'n haircut." She fell asleep once again and left him puzzling over her answer. He didn't want to wake her up again and tell her he couldn't figure out what she meant. No way was he going to admit any kind of defeat in front of her.

'_Well, it's tapping code, so...'_ He knocked out the sequence on the door panel. There was an answering _Click click_.

The door swung open with a creak. He stepped in and a lamp came on automatically. There was a gadget attached to the door's inside hinges. _'It must recognize the vibration pattern of _Shave and a haircut _and manipulate the hinges to open the door.'_ He looked down at the woman in his arms. _'Only you would make something so elaborate just for opening a door.'_

The lamp also appeared to have a motion sensor, and there was a contraption on top of the curtain rod attached to a little solar panel sitting on the sill. _'Must draw and open the drapes at certain light levels.'_

He carefully set the sleeping woman down on her narrow bed and shuffled around the small room admiring all the little homey things she'd apparently built on her off hours. She always made whimsical little things when she couldn't sleep. There was a writing quill dispenser, a little spring-like thingy that corked and uncorked the inkwell (real ballpoint pens were in short supply), a page-turner for a sketchbook, and a wind-up clock made entirely out of bamboo reeds and rubber bands.

Baird shook his head, nearly smiling. _'You are so weird,'_ he thought. He opened a drawer on the small desk to see if there was anything interesting in there, and that's when he found the photo albums.

There was a big white one with _Our Wedding_ scrolling across it in raised gold lettering. The other was small and thick, with a scuffed leather cover and a tiny black 'D' embossed on the upper right corner. They were both overstuffed.

He just stood there for a while, his mind a complete blank. His hand hovered over the drawer's contents. Should he? Shouldn't he? If he did, which one should he open first?

Baird was a _Give me the bad news first_ kind of guy, so he pulled out the white album and opened it on the desktop.

Predictably, the first photo was of James and Sharon posing at the altar after the ceremony. He was smiling broadly. She was radiantly beautiful.

Baird wanted to burn this goddamned album and piss on the ashes. Right frakking now.

Instead he closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose, in and out, in and out, for several long minutes. He wanted to know it all, to have all the ammunition he could, all the kindling necessary to fuel his righteous anger. He looked down at the photo again.

This time he noticed that Sharon wasn't looking at the camera. Her eyes were fixed somewhere on the floor off to the left. She wasn't smiling. The bouquet of red roses—not her favorite flower—was dangling limply in her left hand. James was beaming and wearing a white-tie tuxedo with tails, the most formal of formal wear. He had his arm around her waist, the gold ring on his finger glinting in the flash from the camera. Sharon was wearing a huge, flowing veil and a heavily embroidered gown fit for a queen. She had no expression.

'_If this is the photo they chose to put in front, I wonder what the rest of them look like.'_

He was about to turn the page when he saw the long chain disappearing into her neckline. His mind went blank again. After a minute or two he grabbed the magnifying glass lying on the desk and held it over that part of the photo.

A ball-bearing chain. It was a ball-bearing chain.

He braced his hands on either side of the album and just stared. He went so long without blinking that his eyes dried out. Having to rub them and blink brought him back out of his mental fog. The chain was still there when he looked at the photo again.

'_She wore it. She was still wearing the necklace. __Our__ necklace.'_

The note on the wedding program had said_, 'Keep the goddamned necklace. We don't care what you do with it.'_

_'Frakking LIAR!'_ he roared in his head. It wasn't "we" who had locked him out of DENIS's system, and it certainly seemed like it wasn't "we" who sent back the necklace, either. Just James. It was bad enough he'd taken Sharon, but then James had gone the extra mile to destroy any lingering affection his rival had for his wife.

It took every ounce of his meager self-control not to throw the desk chair through the window pane.

When his pulse rate had come down a bit, he turned the page. The next four pages were smaller photos of wedding-y things. The reception line, cutting the cake, throwing the bouquet, toasts, etc., etc. It became more obvious with each one that James or some bridesmaid was guiding her through each of the steps. In some photos Sharon looked completely shell-shocked.

Baird didn't look at the woman lying on the bed behind him. Not yet. He didn't know what to think yet.

The posed wedding photos ended abruptly. The rest of the entire album featured Grace.

The first was of Sharon and Grace in a hospital bed. It was just seven months or so after E-Day, so the cities on the Ephyran plateau still had most of their infrastructure. Sharon was blotchy and red-eyed and her hair looked like psychotic monkeys had styled it. She was grinning from ear to ear and holding a tiny newborn wearing a pink hat. James was not in the photo.

There were dozens of pictures from Grace's first few days, and many more of her life after that. She started looking more and more like Sharon in each one. James had had very dark hair and green eyes, but Grace appeared to have gotten all her looks from her mother. Hazel eyes, medium brown hair, the same mouth, the same nose, the same eyebrows, chin, jaw, ears and so on. These pages were decorated with drawings and stickers and little thought bubbles with funny comments in them. There was a little snip from Grace's first haircut, a ribbon from the dress she wore at her naming ceremony, scraps of wrapping paper from birthday presents, and similar mementos.

These pages were much more worn than the first ones, having obviously been thumbed through many times. James was clearly head over heels for his baby daughter, and Sharon's face shone like a floodlight when she looked at her. They seemed like a typical happy family, except there were no photos of James and Sharon without their daughter.

There were lots more photos of Grace stuffed in plastic sleeves in the back. Those were what made the album bulge beyond its original dimensions. Scribbled on the inside of the back cover were shakily penned words: _Rest in peace, baby girl. Love, Mama and Papa._

Baird shut the album. He stared at the cover for several minutes before putting it back in the drawer. Then he opened the leather album.

It was them. Him and Sharon. About eight years old. They were going down a slide side-by-side, arms up in the air like they were on a roller coaster. The photo below it was at Sharon's ninth birthday party. He was clapping as she blew out the candles on her cake. There were little mementos in this album too. Movie ticket stubs, covert notes they'd written to each other at school, more thought bubbles, a scrap of cloth he recognized from one of his old shirts that they'd cut up to use as shop rags.

Blinking rapidly, Baird paged through the album. Photo after photo, duplicates of the ones he'd torched after the wedding. He'd burned them in his bedroom fireplace along with her clothes and everything else she'd left behind, then flushed the ashes down the toilet. He was sure he'd never have to look at these pictures ever again.

'_She kept them all these years.'_ He still didn't turn around.

About halfway through he realized it was only him and Sharon in the photos. There were parents, teachers, other friends in the background, but no James. He pulled one out of the plastic sleeve, one that had been taken on a school trip to the beach. Baird remembered very clearly that James had been there because he thought he'd caught him checking out Sharon in her modest bikini.

Sharon had her right arm around his shoulders, and her left arm was out to the side but not visible in the photo. That edge was too sharp, sharper than the factory-cut edges of photo paper, and the picture was almost square instead of rectangular.

'_She cut him out,'_ Baird realized_. 'She cut James out of these photos.'_ This time he couldn't resist turning around to look at Current Sharon. She was on her back, sleeping heavily with her head turned away from him and one hand tucked underneath her chin. She was thinner than Young Sharon, with duller, shorter hair and slightly weathered skin from her nomadic lifestyle. He still didn't know what to think of her.

Baird went to put the photo back in the sleeve and found he didn't want to. It seemed like proof of something. Proof he hadn't just been tossed away like an empty paper cup. He was pretty sure Sharon would have the order of the photos memorized, though, so he slipped it back in its place. There were many more photos stuffed in the back, however. He found a small one, maybe two inches square and cut out of a pep rally photo from a yearbook. She was waving a little OATS Thoroughbreds pennant with the silhouette of their school's race-horse mascot and making a face of overly-dramatic school spirit with her cheek pressed to his. He was genuinely laughing, hugging her to his chest and smiling so big that his eyes were almost slits. It wasn't their best photo, which was probably why it wasn't featured on the pages. Baird took it anyway.

He shut the leather book quietly and put the albums back just the way he found them so she wouldn't know. He crept across the narrow room and stood over her, watching her sleeping face. She was still beautiful, no matter what Jace "Never Gonna Get Some" Stratton said. She had a few more freckles, a few wrinkles, and her cheeks were a little sunken from borderline malnutrition, but they were tiny "flaws" that didn't detract from her appeal at all.

She didn't seem like she was going to hurl, but he delicately arranged her on her side so if she did throw up, she wouldn't breathe the stuff in. If he went by her history, she'd just have one hell of a hangover tomorrow.

Baird stood back and watched her sleep for a while longer.

"Maybe I believe you," he finally said.

He unfolded the thin blanket at the foot of her bed and covered her up to her shoulders.

"Maybe," he repeated.

He went back to his bedroom over the shop, intending to finesse some more information out of her tomorrow.

Except that was the day they discovered the Lambent had mutated into sealife, and they were lurking in the ocean all around Vectes.

**# # #**


	69. E-Day plus 15 years 1 week: 0555 Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 1 WEEK

[Vectes Naval Base, 0555]

Anya knew it was time to corner Marcus and get the truth out of him when Hoffman told her she was going to be stationed in Pelruan to manage the locals. Hoffman needed her to keep the island's original occupants from panicking about the Lambent. They had never seen Grubs in person, much less the mutating, exploding boogeymen that were hiding under the Grubs' beds. Being restricted to land meant no fishing and a subsequent shortfall in food, which was already stretched very thin to support ten times the number of people there had been on Vectes a month ago. The townsfolks were already talking in terms of "us" and "them", and if that didn't get nipped in the bud the army would have to roll in and take Pelruan's resources by force. The COG was still under martial law, but Prescott and Hoffman had so far managed to keep it from becoming an actual police state. That might change very soon.

So Anya was tasked to do some hand-holding and sweet-talking to prevent the locals' anxiousness from turning into full-blown mass hysteria. She would also have a detachment of Gears under her command, just in case things went south. Which meant she'd be living on the other side of the island from Marcus for who knows how long.

She had endured long droughts of attention from Marcus many, many times. Often after battles with high combat losses he wouldn't visit her privately for weeks. He'd never contacted her once during his imprisonment, and it had been a full month after Dom got him out before Marcus had come to her quarters in Jacinto.

Anya paused in the hallway she'd been walking down and let her eyes flutter closed for a moment, remembering that night. It had been as sweetly exhilarating as "Date Night" had been intense. So dreamlike that she had trouble remembering the details. Her memories of Marcus that evening were all light, skimming caresses and his soft breath on her skin. Marcus had touched her like a sculptor admiring an ancient statue, his expression equal parts wonder and awe. When he stared into her face as his hips and hands brought her to the end, his lips had parted as if he were going to say _I love you_.

But he hadn't. Over these past four weeks, Anya became increasingly sure he never would.

This month had been different from all his previous withdrawals. It seemed he couldn't even stand to be around her, like her presence made his skin crawl. He'd been ducking out of rooms she came into, slipping around corners when she saw him on the street, and he'd gotten very good at avoiding eye contact. If they were in a meeting or some other place where he couldn't get away, he even seemed to turn a little green around the gills. Anya needed to know what was going on before she got shipped off to Pelruan for an indefinite amount of time. Fretting over where she stood with him would severely hamper her performance, and no way was she going to disappoint Hoffman on her first frontline assignment.

Anya exited the back door of the requisitions office and peeked down the short alley behind it. Marcus had had Rookie for a week, and he'd already developed a pattern of taking the dog for a pee break every four hours. Rookie, it seemed, had a shy colon. He wouldn't go unless his posterior was hidden by tall grass, and he absolutely _would not_ do his business if someone were looking in his direction. Dom had told her that Rookie already had a preferred "dumping ground": the weedy little yard out back of the boiler shed. Anya hadn't had to pry the information out of Dom; he'd shared it gleefully. Dom thought it was hilarious that someone who had such a strong dislike for dogs was going out of his way to make sure one had privacy for his "toilette", as Dom had put it right before dissolving into a fit of giggles.

"You should see him," Dom had chortled, gasping for air. "Standing there with his Lancer and armor like the flippin' Onyx Guard scanning a crowd for assassins, while Rookie's hosing down a bush three feet away." Dom hadn't been able to speak for several minutes after sharing that little tidbit.

Anya looked at her watch. One minute to 0600. If Dom's unwitting intel was solid, Marcus and Rookie would come into view right about ... now.

In the pinkish pre-dawn light gracing the end of the alley, the silhouettes of a hulking figure and a large canine appeared in the gap between buildings. The dog sprang gleefully into the tall weeds like an overgrown puppy. Marcus was facing toward Anya but couldn't see her in the alley's deep shadows. When Rookie had burrowed deep into the brambles, Anya made her move.

"Atten-_tion!"_ she commanded in her Lieutenant Stroud tones.

Marcus's back automatically went ramrod-straight and his hands positioned themselves in the "port arms" position to hold the Lancer diagonally across his chest. As much as he might want to avoid her, Marcus would never break a call to attention given by a commanding officer.

Anya strode out of the shadows. There was just enough light that she could see Marcus swallow. He stared at a spot on the ground about two yards in front of him. Anya stopped in that area so he would at least have to look at her feet.

"Present _arms!"_

He held the Lancer vertically in front of his body, chainsaw facing out. His eyes locked onto the assault rifle and did not stray to her face.

"Port _arms!"_

Back to the original position.

"Order _arms!"_

He rested the butt of the rifle on the ground at his right side, keeping it upright with a grip on the end of the barrel. Marcus stared over her head into the shadowed alleyway.

Anya clasped her hands behind her back and slowly paced back and forth in front of him like an irritated drill sergeant.

"Sergeant Fenix," she began. Marcus's face was expressionless but he was blinking a lot, something she and Dom knew meant he was extremely uncomfortable.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied.

"Is there something you should tell me, Sergeant?" He swallowed again but said nothing, so Anya pressed with, "Sergeant, your commanding officer asked you a question, and the answer had better be the God's honest truth."

"Yes, ma'am." The muscles at the corners of his jaw began to jump as he clenched his teeth.

"Yes, ma'am, what?"

"Yes to your question, ma'am."

She continued to pace and use her officer's voice. "What is it you would like to say?"

"I ... don't believe it's something I should discuss with my commanding officer."

'_Oh, so it's like that, is it? You're going to play the no-personal-conversations card?'_ It was clear to Anya that he thought he had it figured out: he'd avoid her off-duty, and stonewall her with the privacy regulations while on duty.

Anya was no dummy. She'd spent fifteen years in close quarters with Chairman Prescott and picked up a thing or two about manipulating rules and words.

"Fine, Sergeant. I will be asking the questions, then."

The muscles in his jaw went into overdrive.

"Have you been intentionally removing yourself from the company of certain persons?"

A pause. "Yes, ma'am."

"For reasons personal or professional?"

A much longer pause.

Anya cut in. "I will caution you against falsifying information to your superiors, Sergeant."

"Personal, ma'am."

"I see." She stopped and stood in front of him. Marcus's eyes were aimed solidly over her head. Anya asked The Question. "Are we done, soldier?"

"Yes, ma'am." He relaxed a little.

"I believe you misunderstand me, Sergeant. I said, 'Are _we _done?'"

It was so fast she almost didn't catch it: a flicker of panic flashed through his pale eyes.

"Yes ... Anya," he quietly confirmed.

Anya closed her eyes to collect herself and then opened them again, more of a long blink than anything.

"You're quite sure it's over between us?" she asked, so that she would have no way of persuading herself later than he meant something else.

His gaze dropped to her feet, as if he didn't even want to see her face in his peripheral vision. "Yes, ma'am. Quite sure." His tone was almost apologetic. She didn't care; she didn't want an apology.

Anya had expected to feel pain. She'd expected a stabbing sensation deep in her chest behind the breastbone. Instead she was completely numb, as if she were watching a badly-acted stage play instead of her own life. The only thing she did feel was the compulsion to leave. Other than that, she felt absolutely nothing.

"Dismissed, Sergeant."

Anya left him behind without a backward glance.

She wound her way through the streets of VNB on autopilot, finding her quarters by the time the orange sun had peeked over the ocean. Anya stepped inside her room and locked the door, then stood in the center of the floor. She mentally worked out her future without any emotion. She had gotten the information she needed, straight from the source.

Anya's life was over.

Not her daily life, her social life or her military life, but her love life. There was no one who could replace Marcus, because there was no one else _like_ Marcus.

Anya was convinced that he was a singular phenomenon in the history of Sera. There had been other great warriors, other great lovers, other great minds and souls; but never concentrated so potently into one human being. Anya fancied that Adam and Elain's two impressive lineages had been further distilled with each generation until their virtues reached maximum concentration in Marcus Fenix.

People who knew how intelligent he was wondered why he was a common foot soldier instead of an officer. People who hadn't seen him in action, that is. Anya had spent years watching the grainy, shaky footage from his squad's combat recorders. Hoffman might give the orders, but it was Marcus who actually led the men. And he led like he was born for it.

He functioned like both a battering ram and a shield, and God help the enemy that crossed his path. Anya wondered why the Locust didn't just turn tail and run when they saw that furious, chainsaw-wielding force of nature bearing down on them. He wasn't suicidal, just completely unafraid to die, and it showed. He threw everything he had into each and every fight, not holding anything back in reserve. Marcus fought every battle as though it were his last chance for vengeance.

He brought the same intensity to bed. Marcus always made love to her with everything he had, as if it were his only opportunity to be with her. Every caress overflowed with passion. Every kiss was laced with the purest affection. Every stroke he made in her was a proclamation of fidelity. With him hovering over her, she had no doubts that he loved her, and that was what had kept her devoted to him all these years. That was the reason she had been ready to wait out his forty-year prison sentence.

In bed, Marcus fairly crackled with sexuality, like high-voltage power lines that were on the verge of overload. Anya could almost see little bolts of sensual electricity writhing over his skin like a living net. And yet he was perfectly controlled, spending that energy exactly when and where he wanted. It was always an impressive display of willpower.

There was no such thing as "just sex" with Marcus Fenix. Marcus held nothing back except his words. He concentrated and shaped his desire into a well-prepared performance. There was no wild abandon, no uncontrolled lust or frantic thrusting. It was more like being carried along on the leading edge of a storm that only needed one more puff of wind to become a hurricane.

For seventeen years, she had fretted and puzzled over this man, except when they were alone in her quarters. Outside in the world, she hardly understood their relationship, and he was impossible to speak to about "us". During the day she doubted, she wondered, and she scrutinized his reaction to every pretty girl who came within ten yards of him.

Anya hadn't realized she was in love with him until the night of their date, but that evening she'd also recognized he'd been telling her from the very beginning that he loved her. He never said anything and he never gave hints; it had all been there in how he held her, how he looked at her.

Or at least that's what she'd thought. Apparently she'd been wrong.

Marcus's passion for her had finally worn out. Maybe it was her age: thirty-six was young during the Pendulum Wars, but everyone had been worn down quickly by the unrelenting stress and poor living conditions of the Locust War. Maybe he'd fallen for another woman: Anya knew for a fact that he'd never been with anyone else, but it was well-established that sex wasn't what he was after. Maybe she had disappointed him somehow: did he disapprove of her wanting to fight beside him? Had he realized that he didn't _want_ her to fight beside him? Had her career-change shed light on some hidden flaw?

Maybe he'd finally realized he was out of her league.

When he made love to her she had no doubts about her worth as a sexual partner. If Marcus valued being with her, it meant she had something to be valued. She couldn't have cared less if people thought that was co-dependent: she only cared what Marcus thought of her. But now he didn't want her anymore.

Anya didn't have problems with low self-esteem. She knew she was smart. She knew she was beautiful. She knew she had the potential to be a great soldier. But after rejection by a man like Marcus, she would always wonder what she was lacking that drove him away.

She would never love anyone else, that much was certain. And Anya could never let another man into her body. Not only because no one could replace him, but because she would never trust anyone that way again. She'd held her hand out to the man she loved more than anything in existence, and he'd slapped her face. It was done.

Anya stood in the middle of her room and methodically walled off that part of her self. She found it became easier and easier with each imaginary brick. She boxed in the part of her that worried, the part that cared, the part hoped, that wanted and needed and loved. It took a while because that part turned out to be bigger than she'd thought, fully half of the self that she had mentally drawn up.

When she was finally done, she understood her mother a lot better.

Anya went over to the curtained-off area that was her showerless bathroom. She stood in front of the mirror over the sink and unclipped the razorblade from its handle. Anya held it in her right hand and stared into the mirror.

She saw a strong woman with her whole life ahead of her. A leader, a soldier. A fighter.

"I shall remain vigilant and unyielding in my pursuit of the enemies of the Coalition," she said to her reflection.

"I will defend and maintain the order of life as it was proclaimed by the Allfathers of the Coalition in the Octus Canon." Anya lifted her chin high and raised the razor in her hand.

"I will forsake the life I had before so I may perform my duty as long as I am needed. Steadfast, I shall hold my place in the machine and acknowledge my place in the Coalition."

With her left hand she gathered her hair at the nape of her neck, and with the razor she sawed off her long blonde locks. She would have cut her hair to a more soldierly length long ago if it hadn't been for how much Marcus had liked to run his fingers through it.

Anya dumped the severed ponytail into the old coffee can that served as her trash bin. She looked in the mirror once more and observed that her eyes were as hard as cut gemstones.

"I am a Gear," she said.

**# # #**


	70. E-Day plus 15 years 1 week: 0800 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 1 WEEK

[Vectes Naval Base, 0800]

Anya was finalizing the logistics of merging her squad, consisting of herself, Sam, Alex and Bernie (Vic was already calling them "the Harridan Horde"), with the one Drew Rossi already had stationed at Pelruan. While she got the last details of the move settled for her all-female squad, Bernie was up in the lookout tower on top of VNB's main artillery, scanning the surroundings with Cole. Nobody had seen Lambent in the shallows yet, but several ill-fated fishing boats had already hauled them up in their deep-water nets, so there was no telling where the little bastards would show up next. Cole was using binoculars but Bernie, naturally, was looking through the scope of her sniper rifle with the safety on.

She panned over the buildings at the western edge of the base. A handful of sparks caught her eye, and she zoomed in. _'I hope that's not a generator starting a fire.'_ She saw the back of a small brown-haired woman's head framed in the high window of a metal building and realized she was looking at Sharon grinding something on the wheel in the workshop. Bernie panned around a little, looking for her adopted asshole. He wasn't in view of the window until a shaving from Sharon's project apparently hit her face and she clapped a hand to her eye. Baird appeared and grabbed Sharon's chin, turning her face brusquely side to side to inspect the damage. Sharon flapped an _I'm-okay_ hand signal at him and put down her project, rubbing the area just under her eye. Bernie saw Baird shake his head, say something undoubtedly sarcastic, then take off his goggles and hand them to her. Sharon took them like she'd done it a thousand times and strapped them on over her eyes. She went back to grinding metal as Bernie gaped.

Bernie straightened up and turned to Cole, her mouth opening and shutting like a fish out of water. Cole gave her a weird look.

"Boomer Lady, you okay?"

"He—he—" Bernie pointed a finger down at the workshop. "He—"

"Okay," Cole said, "so far I get that there is a man involved."

"Baird—Baird just—"

"And the man is Baird."

Bernie finally overcame her surprise enough to make full sentences. "Baird just gave Sharon his goggles. His _goggles_, Cole. _THE_ goggles. The ones he never, ever lets anyone _touch_, much less borrow."

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head as the reason came to her.

"Holy shit! He's in love with her!"

Cole pressed his lips together and looked incredibly guilty. He never was good at hiding emotions because he rarely found a reason to.

Bernie stabbed an accusing finger into his chest. "You _knew_! You knew and you didn't tell me!"

Cole lifted his hands defensively. "I swore to him that I wouldn't."

"You didn't tell me that my own—"

That was the moment that Bernie realized she really _did_ think of Baird as a son, not just as a running gag about how immature he was and that she was one of the few people he tolerated. She filed that away for later analysis and went back to reaming out Cole.

"You still should have told me!"

"I promised, Bernie. I said I wouldn't tell anyone, and I haven't."

"Details. Now."

"Sorry, Boomer Lady. Can't do it." Cole crossed those massive arms over his metal breastplate like an extra barrier.

Bernie let out a noise that was half growl and half sigh. "Okay. Okay." She got a devious look on her face. "But I can guess."

Cole was really worried. He knew he couldn't keep his thoughts hidden. He turned to leave and Bernie ran to the head of the narrow stairs and blocked him, knowing very well that he would never manhandle a lady. "Come on, Bernie," he pleaded. "I promised!"

"You're not going to say a thing." Bernie launched into her interrogation, determining her answers by the various grimaces and expressions that crossed Cole's face at each question.

"How long have you known? A week?"

Cole pressed his lips together again.

"A month? Since the move to Vectes? Since she arrived at Port Farrall?"

Bernie knew she'd struck gold when Cole's wrinkled brow relaxed. Relaxation was his "tell". Cole nearly always lost at poker because he thought bluffing was too close to lying, and it showed. When Cole was relaxed, it meant he didn't have to bluff because he had a good hand.

"Which means he was in love with her _before_ she came. And the last time he'd seen her was fifteen years ago. So he fell for her in high school?"

Cole looked off to the side.

"_Before_ high school? Geez, Cole, how far back does this go?"

Cole screwed his eyes shut.

"Middle school?"

Cole kept his eyes shut and tucked his head down.

"_Grammar _school?"

Cole's face started to smooth out again.

"_PRE-_school?"

Cole shuffled his feet.

"Not pre-school, then. Just grammar school."

"Come on, Bernie." Cole looked like he'd just fumbled a Thrashball in the National Finals. "Enough with the twenty questions."

"So he was eleven."

Cole grimaced again.

"Ten?"

He scuffed his foot on the concrete roof.

"Nine?"

"Come on, Bernie, please." He looked miserable, but Bernie had no sympathy for liars. Or secret-hiders, as was true in this case.

"Eight?"

Cole's face relaxed all the way.

"Eight years old." Bernie shook her head. She was speechless for a full thirty seconds, during which she blocked two feints from Cole trying to get past her. "And they're thirty-three now, so that means—" Bernie calculated quickly, "—he's been in love with Sharon for twenty-five years. Frigging twenty...five...years!" She threw her hands up. "I had no idea. I had no idea he was capable of that at all, much less that he's a one-woman-man like Marcus."

"It's not feelings, exactly." Then Cole bit his lips, wide-eyed at having let out additional information.

Bernie capitalized on it. She was a tracker and a sniper, good at creating a complete picture out of scarce data. "Hmm. That's true. He does seem pretty pissed at her most of the time. But he's still doing love-y things for her. So it's the real deal, not infatuation." She nodded in agreement with her conclusion. "That would make sense: no infatuation lasts twenty-five years." Bernie would know: the moment she'd seen Victor Hoffman again, that strong connection had come back. It hadn't been buried so deep after all.

Cole couldn't let her go assault Baird with this information. It could ruin everything. Over the last ten weeks he'd seen a new side of his buddy, a side that enjoyed more than just fixing things. One that wasn't quite so bitterly disgusted with life in general. For the first time since Cole had known him, there was a tiny spark of hope in everything Baird did.

"Look, Bernie. He doesn't know."

"Doesn't know what?"

"He doesn't know he still loves her."

"Oooh. Denial! That's even more juicy." Bernie felt like a kid again, gossiping about who has a crush on who. She could feel like a sixty-year-old woman again later.

"Please, Bernie." Cole looked like he was in pain.

She patted him on the shoulder. "Don't fret, Cole. I'm not going to tell him or Sharon or anyone else. But I just might try to help things along." Dark skin or not, Cole went pale. Bernie put on her most soothing Wise Sergeant face. "No worries, sweetie. I can be discreet. I am a sniper, after all."

Cole propped his elbows on the parapet wall and went back to scanning the base with a huge sigh. "Bernie, you know sooner or later he'll figure out your source of information and then I'll be in deep shit with my best friend, right?"

She placed a hand on his arm and made him look at her. "Seriously, Cole. I am going to be very, very subtle with this. Nobody but you will notice anything. I won't go out of my way, I'll just take the little opportunities that present themselves naturally. Okay?"

Cole gave her eyes sadder than Mac when she ran out of treats. "If you say so."

"I do say so, and—wait a minute." Bernie squeezed his arm. "You said Baird doesn't know, but does Sharon?"

He held back for a moment. Then he decided if Bernie was going to play matchmaker anyway, she ought to have the info to do it right. "No, she doesn't."

"And how does she feel about him?"

"Well, she practically ran away screaming the first time she saw him, but things have settled down since then. She's not _too_ friendly but she's not too _un_-friendly, so I really don't know."

"Yeah." Bernie let go of his arm and leaned on the wall too. "She certainly hasn't been treating him differently than anyone else. Nobody—and I mean _nobody_—suspects anything is going on between them. There's a weak rumor he likes her, but that's just because there's a pretty female mechanic around him a lot and people want to see him get taken down a peg when she rejects him."

Cole looked offended, a rare expression for such a perpetually cheerful man. "Yeah, they do, don't they? I know she's real sweet and Baird can be a jerk sometimes—" Bernie snorted and Cole gave her a pointed look, "—but he's a good guy under all that sarcasm. And you'd be pissy too if someone you trusted left you for—" This time Bernie gave Cole a pointed look. "Oh, shit. Sorry, Boomer Lady. I forgot about you and Hoffman way back when."

"That's right, Cole." Bernie tapped her chest. "I know a thing or two about being dumped the hard way. That's why you can trust me not to screw this up for him." She let out a calculated sigh. "But it'll have to wait until whenever I get back from Pelruan. Let's hope nothing bad happens between them in the meantime."

Cole hid behind his binoculars for at least five minutes. Bernie waited patiently. At last he said, "All right. But if you're in on it, so am I. Where do we start?"

**# # #**

**I've been trying to create a timeline from the books and I've come to this conclusion: Karen Traviss is trying to drive me crazy. Her dates and times are really vague, so I'm going to be just as vague following them. Events from the books will happen in the right order. That's all I'm promising!**


	71. E-Day&15 years 1 week:1900 Baird&Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 1 WEEK

[Imulsion Platform _Emerald Spar,_ 350 km NW of Vectes: 1900 hours]

"Piece-of-shit planet," Dom muttered as they watched the last of the burning Gorasnayan rig collapse in an orange fireball. He thought his comment had been masked by the ear-splitting squeal of twisting metal that carried for miles, but Marcus turned his head to him anyway. Dom shrugged. "Pardon my Pesan," he said.*

"I was just thinking the same thing," Marcus answered, turning his flat gaze back to the boiling ocean that had swallowed the destroyed rig. "Four weeks," he added after a while.

Dom knew what he meant. Four weeks ago, they'd thought it was over. No more Locust, no more deathly cold, no more hunger. Just a few Stranded pirates to wipe out and they could spend the rest of their lives in peace on Vectes.

Now they had an enemy that had had even the Locust horde running scared. They'd sunk half a dozen fishing vessels and now the COG's only source of fuel. And if they followed Imulsion like Baird was guessing, the things would eventually come to Vectes.

Lambent. Exploding, mutating, lightning-fast monsters that seemed to have only one goal: to destroy us.

'_God damn it,'_ Dom cursed to himself_. 'This place was supposed to be safe. __Maria__ was supposed to be safe.'_ Dom clutched his Lancer tight to his chest as he and Marcus stood on the back deck of the Gorasni lifeboat. So, it was back to soldiering. Dom would blast every one of these bastards that came to Vectes until the COG ran out of ammo. After that ... well, he'd just have to trust the big brains to come up with something.

Dom watched Baird out of the corner of his eye. Dom knew him well enough to tell that his silence meant he was absolutely shattered. At the moment, Dom agreed with him: the loss of the Imulsion drilling platform was a huge blow. For Dom, it was because now they were back to a limited supply of fuel. Fuel they would need if they had to evacuate from Vectes. For Baird, it was because such a fine piece of engineering, possibly the only working platform on Sera, had just gone down in flames. Humanity was decades away from being able to build something like that again, maybe even as much as a century. And that was _if_ they could survive and prosper, which was becoming a very elusive goal.

"Piece-of-shit planet," Dom said again.

#

[Vectes Naval Base, 2100 hours]

Marcus, Jace and Dom were helping get the Gornasi workers settled into the hospital. Some had burns, some had smoke-inhalation, and some had mild hypothermia from treading water until the Ravens or the lifeboats found them.

Cole was practically carrying Baird, whose adrenaline had worn off about halfway back to base. The Glowie that had mauled his leg when he was being winched off the sub had really got him, worse than anyone realized until they'd gotten a good look in the Raven. There were two jagged gashes where the thing had ripped at his calf with its front legs, and two deep puncture wounds that it had made with its middle legs. Baird had kicked it off before it could get the back set of its six legs into him. Or explode and take his foot with it.

Now Cole had Baird's arm around his shoulders so that Baird didn't have to put much weight on his injured leg as he limped down the hall to the triage lobby. The leg didn't bleed much, but the wounds cut well into the muscle. Dom knew you couldn't fight through that kind of pain. It overloaded the nerves so much that your limb just wouldn't respond.

By the time Cole got Baird onto a gurney, the corporal was pale, glassy-eyed and sweating. Plus he'd been floored by the loss of the _Emerald Spar_. Not a good combination. Any veteran Gear knew shock coming on when he saw it. Dom would admit it: he was worried. He'd worked with Baird for eighteen months now and mostly thought of him as an annoying know-it-all who occasionally happened to save their lives. But for some unfathomable reason, Maria liked "Beard". She said he was nice to her, and Dom hadn't seen anything to contradict that. If Dom's wife liked someone, then he'd try to like them too. Asshole or not. Plus Baird had very nearly given his life to protect the _Clement_ and her crew this morning when the first Stalk had popped up and started spewing a new kind of crawling Glowie all over the submarine.

Sharon Keller, however, did not seem to find this heroic. She burst into the triage room with fire in her eyes, followed closely by DENIS.

"And you gave _me_ shit for sneaking into Nexus?" she yelled at Baird. "Why the hell didn't you just _get back into the frigging sub_ and let it dive?"

Baird had been refusing all offers to let someone stitch him up and trying to do it himself. He looked up when Sharon came rolling in. "There wasn't enough time for that!" His pale cheeks began to redden with outrage.

'_Well, at least his blood pressure's not going to crash now,'_ Dom thought.

"Not enough time to hop in a hatch and dog it behind you? Bullshit." She saw what he was trying to do. "And what the hell is this? Doing your own stitches with shaky hands? You're gonna give yourself a great big scar, if not an infection!"

"I'd like to see you do better, Miss Smarty-Pants!" Baird's glassy eyes cleared up when he glared at her.

"Fine, I will!" She snatched the needle and suture thread out of his hands and took a pair of medical scissors to the haphazard stitches Baird had already put in his calf muscle. "Look at this mess!"

"I think he's out of danger," Cole whispered to him, Marcus and Jace.

"Yeah," Dom agreed as they left Baird and Sharon harping at each other in order to go check on the other wounded. "They _definitely_ grew up together. I've never seen someone be so consistently pissed off at Baird but not hate him. Lots of practice, I'd guess."

They met Doc Hayman in the hallway leading to the ICU. Despite her permanently cranky attitude, the seventy-something surgeon took special care of injured Delta members. That alone told Dom how much the senior staff valued Delta Squad.

Marcus hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Baird's out of danger now. Sharon Keller's keeping his blood pressure up by giving him hell and a bunch of sutures," he told her.

"I don't think he'll need morphine, either," Cole added. "Rage is a hell of an anesthetic."

Like everyone else, Hayman seemed to respect Sharon, even though she wasn't outright affectionate toward humans in general. "Well, at least she knows what she's doing." Dom wondered if the doctor meant just stitching Baird up, or if Sharon was making him mad on purpose to keep his blood circulating.

Dom realized they'd stopped outside a weirdly home-like room.

"What's this for? It looks like a hotel room." There was a large bed with non-ratty sheets, pillows and blankets, end tables, a gilt-edged vanity mirror, a newish-looking couch and even drapes on the wall to give the impression of a window.

"Ah, yes. We call it the 'Re-Population Suite'."

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Dom asked.

"Yes. It's like the ones in prisons for conjugal visits. Fertile single women who volunteer for pregnancy can use it with their chosen donor."

"Chosen donor?"

"How did you think we were going to boost the population with all the in-vitro tech at the bottom of the ocean? Accidental pregnancies don't happen often enough to rebuild humanity, and even a lot of married couples are having trouble conceiving. This is like a sperm bank. The volunteer mothers are screened for STDs and other health problems. If they pass they can choose from a portfolio of several dozen candidates, and they don't have to go through with it unless they find a partner they like. It's a hell of a lot more ethical than the goddamned baby farms were." Doc Hayman gave them all a ferocious glare.

Although the only contact Delta had had with the farm outside Jacinto was to rescue the women and children there, they all still looked at the floor like a group of troublemakers being dressed down by a school principal. Dom felt the almost overwhelming urge to apologize for being male. The Jilane Farm had been a nightmarish lesson in how close the COG was to extinction, and how much of their humanity they had given up in the dubious name of "the survival of the species"._ 'If that's what we have to do to survive, what kind of society's going to come out the other side?'_

"The new system is my own design," the doctor continued. "I started it back in Jacinto after the Jilane Massacre. Clayton Carmine is the most requested," she added proudly.

Dom held up a hand. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. You're using Carmine as a _breeding stud?"_

"If the shoe fits," Marcus muttered.

"He volunteered," Hayman said defensively.

"I'm sure he did," said Dom.

"_That's_ why he has so many girlfriends who don't get jealous of each other. They're all trying to get pregnant!" Jace realized.

"Well, not all. I'm pretty sure the infertile female Gears just want a good lay."

"Cole!" Dom was scandalized.

"Hey, it's true. Everyone says the man's got skills."

"After all that practice, I don't doubt it," Marcus added darkly.

Doctor Hayman's hands were liver-spotted with age but strong as a vise. One whipped out and caught Marcus by the front collar of his armor. She yanked him down to within inches of her fiery eyes. Marcus Fenix might be intimidating to many people, but this tough old bird definitely wasn't one of them.

"Don't you _dare_ give that young man any shit for this," she growled. Her sudden movement and the fierce warning in her face had caught Marcus off guard, and his eyes were wide as saucers. As were the rest of Delta's. Dom and Jace both had their mouths open in surprise. Cole had taken a step back.

Hayman shook Marcus a little. "That young soldier is the favorite because _he's nice to them_." She let go of Marcus to give the rest of them a look that could rival a Grindlift's laser. "I know you saw Jilane, but that was only one farm, and not the worst of them. Not by far."

Hayman softened her voice considerably and called into another room. "Amy, would you come here, please?" A mousy little blonde woman peeked around the corner of the door. "It's all right, Amy, I just want you to tell these nice gentlemen,"—Hayman gave them a withering glance—"why you always ask for Private Carmine."

"Oh!" The meek little woman brightened and came out into the hall. "I like Clayton!" She looked into the Suite and smiled dreamily. "He brought me flowers."

"Flowers, huh?" Jace looked like he was itching to take notes.

"Yeah." She sighed happily. "The first couple times we just talked and cuddled."

"Cuddling. Got it." Jace nodded.

Hayman rolled her eyes at him. "You have to be eighteen to apply, Stratton."

"_Damn_ it!"

Dom could swear Hayman almost smiled. Almost. He couldn't help laughing at Jace himself. "Curses! Foiled again!"

Jace gave him a sour glare. "Shut up, Santiago."

"Anyway," said the sweet little prospective mother. "That's why I wouldn't mind getting pregnant by him." Her face darkened for a moment. "The one they assigned me at the farm liked to cut me. You know ... during."

Dom felt sick. "Oh, God." Marcus, Cole and Jace looked a little queasy as well.

Hayman put a steady hand on Amy's shoulder. "Don't worry, Amy. That's all over now."

The blonde woman smiled again. She seemed a little ... off. Although Dom supposed anybody, woman _or_ man, would be "a little off" after being repeatedly raped by a psycho with a knife. "When can I see Clayton next?" she asked eagerly.

Hayman patted her back. "I'll see if we can't bump you up on the roster."

"Thanks, Isabel! I'll go back to work now." She skipped off back to her job making bandages out of old bedsheets. Dom realized he'd never thought of Hayman as having such a feminine first name.

Hayman turned back to them with an arched eyebrow. "See? Clayton approaches his assignments like dates, not excuses to abuse some poor girl who has no choice in the matter. I want this information to stay completely within Delta. Do you hear me?"

They all said, "Yes, ma'am," in turn.

She gave them one last warning. "If this gets out, I'll personally make sure there aren't any painkillers available the next time one of you needs to get stitched up."

Another round of "Yes, ma'am."

They all breathed sighs of relief when Hayman finally left them in the hallway.

Jace looked speculatively into the Suite. "You think I should ask Carmine for tips?" he asked idly.

Dom started snickering. "Couldn't hurt."

"Shut up, Santiago. Again."

Marcus grumbled something under his breath about Carmine.

Cole slapped him on the back. "Don't worry, my man. I'm sure your girl is off-limits."

"Who said I have a girl?" Marcus said in a very flat voice.

"Uh ... sorry, Marcus, I just assumed." Cole said it slowly, obviously confused.

"Well, don't."

Dom, Jace and Cole all looked at each other. Marcus stood there with a closed expression.

Although Marcus only talked to Dom about Anya, Jace and Cole knew very well that they had a relationship. Dom kept his voice low so only Delta could hear. "Marcus, are you two ...?"

Marcus's face gave nothing away. "Anya and I are not a couple."

'_Whoa.'_ That was quite the bombshell. Dom gave Jace and Cole a flick of his eyes.

Cole threw a huge arm around Jace's shoulders and steered him back toward the triage lobby. "Let's go check on our favorite Gorasni, Jayson. See if they're all put back together yet."

Dom pushed Marcus into the Suite and locked the door.

Marcus arched an eyebrow. "You know people are going to talk if they realize you and I are in here alone."

Dom wasn't having it. "Spit it out, Marcus. What happened?"

His adopted brother shrugged unconvincingly. "We're not together anymore. That's it."

"The hell do you mean, 'That's it'? You don't just 'not together anymore' a seventeen-year-long relationship. And what's up with saying that in front of Jace and Cole? You _never_ volunteer personal information. Hell, when we were kids I had to pry your favorite color out of you with a crowbar!"

Marcus leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms.

"Oh, no. You don't get to stonewall me this time, Fenix." Dom poked Marcus in the chest. "I want to know what the hell is going on. Anya is _my_ friend too."

Marcus stared over Dom's head at the far wall. "She's getting older, Dom. If she's going to find somebody who'll marry her, she needs to do it sooner rather than later. You know I'm not the marrying kind."

"Wha—?" Dom had to pace around the room for a minute, rubbing his eyes with both hands. He'd always hoped Marcus would eventually get his head out of his ass and ask Anya to be his wife. Vectes was supposed to be the start of a new life for all of them, a chance to finally put down roots. But Marcus had broken up with Anya _before_ they found out about the Stalks. What the hell?

"Fine. Fine!" Dom threw his hands in the air. "If you won't tell me, I'll ask Anya what happened."

"Good luck with that. She's in Pelruan." Marcus only got rudely sarcastic when he was under stress. Dom stopped pacing and squinted at him. He could glean from that statement that this break-up was bothering Marcus a lot more than he let on.

Dom would not be deterred. He'd find a way to figure this out. "Watch me," he said. A flick of Marcus's eyelids told him that his friend was worried Dom would be successful.

Marcus's refusal to share his private thoughts could be absolutely infuriating, and this was one omission Dom wasn't going to just let slide. His brother's entire future—and Anya's—was in jeopardy and he wouldn't even tell Dom why.

"Watch me," Dom repeated, and left Marcus to explain to any witnesses why they'd been in the Re-Population Suite with the door locked.

'_If he's gonna suddenly declare himself single,'_ Dom thought, _'he can damn well do his own damage control.'_

**# # #**

*** Instead of "Pardon my French."  
**

**Fifty gamer points if you spotted Zaeed's line from Mass Effect 2!  
**


	72. E-Day plus 15 years 1 week: 1920 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 1 WEEK

[Vectes Naval Base: 1920 hours]

"There!" Sharon snipped the last end of Baird's stitches and stood back to admire her handiwork. She'd used individual dissolvable stitches on the muscle and a continuous whip-stitch on his skin with regular silk sutures. With great difficulty, Baird had sat still while she worked on his leg, although his mouth had been in constant motion. He kept talking and complaining long after Sharon had stopped responding. Baird had a sneaking suspicion that she had goaded him into anger so he wouldn't feel the pain. Pain actually would have been good because it would have overshadowed how warm and smooth her hands were on his leg despite the fact that she was stabbing a curved needle through his flesh. And now he was running out of things to be angry about. Well, things he could say in public, anyway.

"And would it kill you to warn me before you turn on the air compressor? I don't need any more help going deaf than I've already had from fifteen years of gunfire and explosions."

"Do you want some painkillers, Damon?" Sharon interrupted his tirade.

He was going to continue ranting, but painkillers were actually a good idea now. "Uh, probably."

"Good, because I'm pretty sure this leg is going to hurt like a mofo in about five minutes." She patted an uninjured part. The light touch gave him goosebumps. Sharon felt them under her palm. "Maybe a blanket, too. Do you want something to drink while I'm at it? You're probably thirsty after the blood loss."

"Um, yeah, actually I am thirsty." He cleared his throat.

"I'll be right back. Don't get off that gurney unless you want to end up face-down on the linoleum when your leg gives out."

Sharon went to a male nurse at the other end of the lobby, the same one who had put her clavicle back into place. Sharon had her back to Baird but he could tell by the flirty expression on the man's face that she was being cute as a button. _'Well, at least this time she's using her powers for good.'_ She walked out of sight as the nurse came over to Baird with two syringes.

"What are those?" he demanded, pissed off that the guy still had a distracted smile on his face.

"Antibiotics." He lifted one and then the other. "And painkillers." He stabbed the one with the antibiotics into Baird's calf and smashed down on the plunger. It felt like liquid fire.

"Ow, goddamit! You couldn't have done that _after_ the painkillers?"

The nurse smirked. "I could have, yes."

"Asshole."

"I could just let you sit here and experience the full effect of the muscle and nerve trauma you've had. Or you could shut up." Baird pressed his lips together hard, but couldn't help the filthy look he gave the nurse while the smartass injected the painkillers into the vein in his elbow. The guy patted the injection site. "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"

It was, actually, but Baird kept his mouth shut in case he needed more painkillers later.

"That ought to keep you quiet for a few hours." The nurse walked away muttering, "Hallelujah."

"Wanker," Baird muttered back. Another derogatory term he'd picked up from Bernie.

By the time Sharon returned with a plastic cup of water and a blanket, Baird was seeing ribbons of color outlining objects. Sharon herself had a nimbus of multicolored light, like there was a prism refracting sunlight just behind her.

"I don't know what he gave me," Baird said, "but it's _awesome_." He felt like he was immersed in a warm bath.

Sharon's laugh sounded like a chorus of birds. "I'll bet."

He didn't feel it when she covered him up to the shoulders with the blanket, but when she pulled his goggles down to hang around his neck the sensation was like she stroked his face with a feather duster. The water she gave him tasted like nectar and his arms were so heavy she had to hold the cup for him.

His blinks were getting longer and longer, but he fought unconsciousness so he could ask, "Where's DENIS?"

Sharon said, "Shave and a haircut," into thin air. DENIS clicked twice and shimmered into view over the foot of Baird's gurney.

"Hey, little buddy," Baird said sleepily. "Could you make sure nobody steals my goggles while I'm out?" DENIS clicked twice again. "Thanks, D."

"Will you be okay here with DENIS for a while?" Sharon asked. She brushed a bit of hair off his forehead, making him shiver. "I've got a couple things I need to take care of at the shop and then I can come back. Should only take a few hours."

"Mmm-hmm," he responded.

"Good." Sharon started to turn away, and Baird's hand grabbed her wrist of its own accord. She raised her eyebrows at him. "Yes?"

"Why did you take him?"

"Take who?" She looked up at the bot that had taken up a sentinel position in the corner over Baird's head. "You mean DENIS?"

"Yeah." When he looked, his hand was back down at his side. "Why'd you take him?"

Sharon sighed, rubbing her forehead. "You're not going to like this."

"Tell me." He indicated himself with the one finger he could still move. "I'm in no condition to fight."

"I didn't take him; he followed me home and wouldn't go back."

"No, really. Why'd you take him?"

"I'm not making this up, Damon. He followed me through the woods, and when I gave him the 'return to base' command, he ignored it. I ran a whole squad of diagnostics, and he stonewalled me each time with 'file not found' or 'no data available' nonsense." Sharon rubbed her arms, like she always did when she was feeling uncomfortable. "I think ... I think he knew I was upset, and he didn't want to leave me alone."

"Robots don't have empathy."

"Try telling that to him." Sharon indicated the teal robot with her eyes. Baird looked up. DENIS bent his flexible optics down at him. It was probably the painkillers, but DENIS looked like he was agreeing with her.

Now was the time to find out if she would admit to having the photo album. "Do you still have anything else of mine?"

"I do have a couple of keepsakes besides DENIS."

"Really? Like what?"

Sharon grinned. "I don't have your name tattooed on my ass or anything, if that's what you're asking."

He looked her over with half-closed eyes. "You didn't say anything about tattoos in other places."

"There are no tattoos. Period."

"Are you sure? I could check for you."

"I'm sure you would." She did the birdsong laugh again.

Baird's dulled thinking got sidetracked imagining where Sharon would get a tattoo if she did have one, and what it would be. When he opened his eyes to ask another question, it was nighttime and only the lights in the hallways were on. Dammit, he'd missed his chance. She had deliberately distracted him by mentioning asses and tattoos. Clever wench.

"DENIS," he whispered. The robot's many-sided silhouette appeared over the foot of Baird's gurney. "Go find out what's taking Sharon so long."

As DENIS floated away obediently Baird thought, _'She should have been back by now. I need one of those trackers like Dom has for Maria.'_

Then he thought,_ 'Why am I whispering?'_

"Hey!" Baird yelled at the unseen night-shift nurses. "What's a guy gotta do to get some goddamned water around here?"

_**# # #**_


	73. 1 year 11 weeks before E-Day: 0100 Baird

1 YEAR, 11 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Halvo Bay, Tyrus: 0100 hours]

Damon was a cuddler. And a very good one at that.

He particularly liked to "spoon" with Sharon after making love so he could fall asleep with one hand cradling her breast and her rear parked in his lap. His reasoning for this sleeping position had been that he'd waited almost two years to touch the former and over _three_ to touch the latter, so he wanted as much contact with them as possible.

Sharon didn't mind at all. He was warm, and gentle, and didn't have tons of scratchy body hair. He wasn't likely to sprout much more in their lifetime, either. By now it was clear he wasn't going to be a very big man. Bottom end of average, if he hadn't topped out already. He was about 5'8" and 145 pounds soaking wet. But Sharon herself was only 5'2" and 115, so he was big enough for her. She wiggled her butt against him and Damon made a contented little growl as he nuzzled behind her ear. Sharon grinned to herself. _'More than big enough,' _she thought.

They both had a little more growing to do, and Damon had been gaining muscle the last two years from swimming and lifting her over his head during dance lessons. Ballroom dancing was probably her favorite extracurricular because she got to have her hands all over him in public, especially during some of the racier Kashkuri routines. Swimming was her second-favorite because she got to watch his sleek body cut through the water while he was wet and practically naked. Life didn't get much better than lounging poolside, drawing machines on her waterproof screen and watching Damon swim. Especially since she bribed his swimming tutor to keep quiet about her being there at the aquatic center. Every time Damon's fifty warm-up laps took him back to her end of the pool, he surged up onto the edge like a trained seal to get a quick kiss. Then Sharon would go back to sketching until he came around again.

She sighed as Damon dragged his soft lips back and forth across her shoulder blade. The only thing different she would wish for him—and she would never tell him this—was just a tiny bit more butt to squeeze. James had been calling him "None-Butt" for years, which both boys found hysterically funny. And it _was_ funny, she would simply prefer a little more of a handful.

Having a muscular ass to dig her fingers into went a long way toward keeping her noise level down. She didn't scratch his back or chest because the marks would show when he was changing at school. Or, as was often the case, when Baird Senior made Damon take his shirt off to be beaten. She didn't like marking him because Damon already got hurt a lot between his father's harsh "discipline" methods and constantly getting into fights. But sometimes Level Two was so _over_-stimulating that she had to sink her nails or teeth into something so she wouldn't shriek at the top of her lungs.

Like tonight. "I'm sorry about your hand, babe," Sharon apologized again. Damon rested his chin on her shoulder and brought his hand up to look at the tiny crescent-shaped dashes that were going to be little bruises in the morning. She never drew blood, but there were usually tooth marks that had to be camouflaged.

"Bah," he said dismissively. "It's not so bad." He ran his fingertips up and down her sternum and grinned at her. "At least I know you were enjoying yourself."

Sharon giggled. "I always enjoy myself." It was true: ever since their nearly-disastrous first time, Damon was never satisfied until Sharon was either arched like a bow or biting his hand like she'd done about ten minutes ago. Many a time Damon had gone to school with his hand bandaged and told people he'd injured it working on a project. Which was technically the truth since last spring he'd put "Make Sharon squeal" at the top of his internal to-do list.

She turned onto her back so she could caress his silky hair with both hands. It was an eye-catching platinum blond color that a lot of girls would kill to have. It reminded Sharon of white-gold jewelry.

Sharon managed to keep a disappointed look off her face at the thought of gold jewelry. Since their first kiss they'd planned their big leaps in intimacy to happen on his birthday. Fourteen had been deeper kissing (i.e. with tongue), fifteen was petting (clothes stay on, thank-you-very-much-Damon), and sixteen had been ending their virginity together. According to their five-year plan, they were supposed to get married on his eighteenth birthday. (That might be a little young for most people, but by then they would have been together for ten years and unofficially engaged for almost five.) Yet Damon's seventeenth birthday had come and gone without an official proposal. That didn't necessarily mean he'd changed his mind, but it hadn't kept Sharon from feeling confused and a little bit insecure when nothing had happened. She wasn't sure what was going on with that whole situation, and yes, sometimes it kept her awake long after he'd fallen asleep. However, if she went by the way he was looking at her right now, the delay wasn't for lack of affection.

She traced a finger along his jawbone from one ear to the other. He had a decent amount of facial hair but it was such a light color that he didn't have to shave very closely. Well, he didn't _have_ to, but he did because Sharon disliked getting whisker burn on her sensitive skin. She didn't ask him to shave his chest, though, because that hair was soft and sparse. Same with his legs. Occasionally she'd seen the boys' gym class doing laps in their running shorts, and there were more than a few sets of legs that made their owners appear to be wearing wooly brown socks. Sharon much preferred Damon's nearly invisible body hair to some teddy-bear lookalike.

Damon was watching her fingers wander down the front of his firm chest with a slight smile on his lips. Further south he had some darker blond hair she was going to explore, but before her hand could get there DENIS tapped "Shave and a haircut" on the other side of the bedroom door.

There was only one thing that would make DENIS intrude on their little world: someone was coming.

Damon sprang out of his bed, yanked on his pajama bottoms and ran out to the salon. Sharon started gathering up her clothes. From the outer door she heard Damon say, "Shit, shit, shit!"

"What? Who is it?" she asked when he ran back into the bedroom.

"Jocelin." Damon almost never called him "Dad". He said that was a title for people who actually bothered to parent their children.

"How much time?" Sharon yanked on her shirt, skipping the bra. Since Damon's bedroom was up three flights of winding marble staircase, it usually took Jocelin a few minutes to arrive. She and DENIS could usually slip out the window and climb down the trellis before he burst through the door.

"Not enough. Hide." Damon kicked her bra and panties under the bed. He snapped his fingers at DENIS and pointed to the space under the king-side bed. "DENIS, get under there with her." DENIS floated down onto the floor and used his chicken-like legs to crawl under the bed. Sharon followed him, pushing her clothes in front of her. They arranged themselves under the far side, where the shadows would be too deep for Jocelin to see them even if he got down on his hands and knees. The walk-in closet wasn't an option because if Jocelin didn't happen to have a belt on he would go get one of Damon's.

Sharon had just wriggled into her pants when Jocelin kicked in the outer door. The Bairds' servants would repair it tomorrow with no questions asked. They were paid very well to keep their noses out of "family matters", and Jocelin could be quite charming when he wanted to. Damon refused to be polite to servants who let a judge bribe them, so most of the maintenance staff and maids didn't like Damon and figured the rich, spoiled brat had it coming anyway.

Damon waited a beat and then flung open the door like he'd heard the noise of splintering wood and gotten out of bed. The low lights in the bedroom let Sharon see Jocelin flip on the light switch in the salon.

"What the hell do you want?" Damon snapped at his father, arms crossed over his chest to hide his bitten hand. Although he never fought back, Damon refused to be cowed by physical abuse.

It was Jocelin's sheer size and commando training that made it impossible for Damon to take him in a fight. Damon had inherited a masculinized type of his mother's slight build and a more refined take on his father's face and coloring. It always disturbed Sharon to see Jocelin because he looked like an older, bigger, sadistic version of Damon. And since domestic violence tended to be passed down through generations like a genetic defect, Damon had the potential to become just like his father.

'_Not if I have anything to say about it,'_ Sharon reminded herself. She and James had been a big enough part of Damon's life that he had more positive influences than bad. In fights with other boys he never struck first and he knew when to stop before he seriously hurt someone. The tussles were almost always Damon teaching some schoolyard bully a lesson. Damon might be on the small side, but bullies soon learned that even if they _could_ best him, they'd still have to fight him again the next day. And the day after that, and third day, and the fourth and fifth, until either Damon won or they just gave up out of exhaustion. His body wasn't always capable of brute strength, but he had an indomitable will that eventually overcame any obstacle in his path.

He had not yet won a lasting victory against Jocelin and tonight wasn't going to be the tiebreaker either.

"Why the frak did you quit your fencing lessons?" Jocelin yelled with his massive fists clenched at his sides. It wasn't at all uncommon for Damon to blow off extracurricular lessons or drive away the tutor if he felt the subject wasn't worthwhile, but Jocelin always got himself worked up about any defiance of his orders. He'd been a lieutenant-colonel in the army, a district attorney and now a Tyran high court judge; no one disobeyed his commands except his son. And his wife to a lesser extent, but that was mainly because Elinor's family had even more wealth and power than Jocelin's. Judge or not, the Lyttons could destroy him if he raised a hand against her. But he wouldn't. In their own twisted way, they loved each other, probably because they were so alike. It enraged both of them that they had so far been unsuccessful in molding their son into a carbon copy of Jocelin. Damon's small frame was just an outward reminder that he opposed them on almost every issue.

"Because it's a ridiculous waste of my time!" Damon yelled back. "When the frak am I going to need fencing skills in real life? Nobody has settled disagreements with a sword duel since the Silver Era!" His parents had tried to get him involved in every kind of high-society sport and pastime. Few had stuck. The only reason he was attending OATS instead of a different prep school was the social status attached to being a rich scientist like the Fenixes, the Coopers, and Sharon's own family, the Markhams. His parents' long-term plan was for him to become a commando, next a famous scientist and then a patent judge. Maybe even Attorney General, a post Jocelin was currently campaigning for himself. The only part Damon agreed with was the science, so far as it related to machines.

"You will do as I say!" Jocelin countered.

"Frak that," Damon responded. He always swore a lot more around his father.

"You ungrateful little brat," Jocelin spat. "Let's see if I can teach you some manners." He removed his belt and doubled it with a well-practiced movement.

Damon snorted in disdain. "Hasn't worked so far."

Jocelin stepped forward and grabbed Damon by his hair. Sharon sucked in her breath. She'd never actually been around for one of Damon's whippings before. Normally she would have made it into her clothes and down the rose trellis in time, but Jocelin had to have been running up the stairs to get here so quickly. Her instinct was to dash out into the living room and go for the bastard's eyes, but the only reason he would have come up in the middle of the night to air a grievance he'd obviously heard about during the day was if he'd had a lot to drink. Besides revealing their intimate relationship, if Sharon showed herself there was no telling what an alcohol-fueled Jocelin would do. And if he laid a hand on her Sharon was positive Damon would kill him. She had no desire to see the love of her life go to prison, so she pressed a fist to her mouth and did nothing.

Damon struggled a bit as a matter of principal, but Jocelin was just too strong. He tripped Damon with a martial-arts move and his son hit the priceless Ostrian rug with a dull thud. Jocelin twisted Damon's head down to the floor by the grip on his hair and placed a boot between his shoulders to keep him there. With over two hundred pounds of weight at his disposal Jocelin could easily crush Damon's spine if he struggled. So instead Damon lay still, his hand tucked under his chest so Jocelin wouldn't see Sharon's bite mark. Damon's face was turned toward Sharon, but he already had a blank look that meant he was somewhere else. Long ago he'd told her he didn't "stick around for it" but instead relived one of his vivid memories, usually something mundane from their younger years.

Sharon wished she had an eidetic memory she could lose herself in so she wouldn't have to see this. She wasn't sure if she should watch as a matter of support or turn away so he wouldn't feel embarrassed later. The decision was made for her the first time Jocelin's belt lashed down on Damon's back with a surprisingly loud _crack_. The instant red mark coupled with the autonomic flinching of Damon's whole body nearly made Sharon scream. She curled up on her side and covered her ears with her hands.

Even though the sounds were muffled, she couldn't keep her mind from counting the strokes of the belt. Ten, eleven, twelve ... he'd stopped. Sharon uncovered her ears but didn't look.

"There." Jocelin sounded satisfied, and much calmer. "That ought to teach you some respect."

Damon's weary voice said, "Don't count on it ... cockbite."

There was one more fierce _crack_ and a pained grunt from Damon. Sharon clapped her hands over her ears again.

She remained curled up until she hadn't heard anything for a while. When she dared to look, Jocelin was gone. He hadn't slammed the door because that was pretty hard to do without a doorjamb to slam it against. The entire lock and a good chunk of the door and doorjamb were lying on the rug.

Sharon waited another minute to make sure Jocelin wasn't coming back for seconds. She watched Damon lie there for a little bit. He had his eyes closed and was trembling slightly.

Their devoted little robot started to crawl out from under the bed. "DENIS, stay," she whispered to him. His servos whined. "I mean it, stay here," she repeated. DENIS stopped making noise and settled back on his metal haunches.

Sharon crept out to her boyfriend. She brushed a little bit of hair off his forehead and he shuddered. "Babe, are you okay?" she asked softly. 'Sugar' was a semi-sarcastic term they used because most couples' pet names had something to do with sweetness. 'Babe' was what they called each other when they wanted an honestly tender epithet.

"Mmmnnn," he groaned lightly. A wry smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. "My back hurts for some reason."

Sharon huffed in relief. If he was making jokes he couldn't be too traumatized. "Do you want to get back in bed?"

His eyes remained closed, but he managed a tiny laugh. "Do I ever. But I'm not really in shape to enjoy it right now." Normally she would give him a light slap on the shoulder for lewd comments, but the one nearest her had an angry red welt from the last strike of the belt.

"How about some ice instead?"

His eyebrow raised. "That would be nice, actually."

"DENIS," Sharon called. The bot floated out of the bedroom. She pointed to the salon's kitchenette. "Get us some ice cubes from the mini-fridge, would you? And a face towel from the bathroom." She continued stroking Damon's hair until DENIS brought her a little terrycloth bundle. He'd even knotted it correctly. "Thanks, pumpkin," she said to him. DENIS settled down near Damon's head and put out a flexible clamp-arm to stroke his hair in imitation of Sharon. That got a genuine smile out of his creators.

"Gets cuter every day, doesn't he?" Damon asked rhetorically.

"Sure does." Sharon was glad his eyes were still closed so he couldn't see her angry tears and mistake them for pity. She touched the ice pack gently to the worst of the welts left by the belt. They were all pretty bad: it looked like Damon was wearing several sets of dark red suspenders. Jocelin may have hit him "only" twelve or thirteen times, but the man put all of his weight and fury behind each stroke. It was a small miracle that it hadn't ripped the flesh. The trauma to the skin from the heavy blows had made some of the pores ooze blood anyway. The cream-colored terrycloth was quickly becoming polka-dotted. There was also a red boot print between his shoulder blades.

They were all quiet for several minutes. Sharon ran her fingers over the strips of unmarked skin while she iced his wounds. _'Oh, my Damon,'_ she thought. _'Why do you put up with this?'_ They'd talked about running away but their parents had unlimited funds with which to search for them, although the Bairds and Markhams had very different reasons to want their children back.

Damon knew her too well; he correctly deduced her thoughts from her silence. "I won, you know."

"Hmm?"

He opened his eyes finally and looked at her, not defeated in the least. "I won. I didn't give him the satisfaction of crying or screaming, so he left, and I don't have to go to fencing anymore. I won." Damon struggled up onto his forearms. "I always get my way in the end. Him hitting me won't stop me from doing what I want to do, so I win." He narrowed his eyes at the broken door. "And some day, when I'm sure I can do it, I'm going to kick his ass." Damon turned his defiant blue gaze back to her. "I mean _really_ kick his ass. He'll be too proud to tell the police his son beat him up, so I'll get away with it, too."

"You don't have to be macho for me, you know." She truly hoped he hadn't mocked his father because she was watching, and gotten a worse beating for it than he normally would have.

"I know. I'm being macho for myself." He gave her a weary but satisfied smile. "Every time he doesn't break me it makes me the bigger man." Damon yawned. "It does make me tired, though. Help me to bed before I fall asleep on the rug."

Damon got to his hands and knees and Sharon carefully pulled him to his feet without touching his back. Damon hooted a little when a trickle of ice water ran down his spine and into his butt crack. "Woo, that's cold!" Sharon hoped he wasn't putting on a brave front for her. She didn't want him to feel like he had to cover up his hurt. But when he flopped face-down on the bed and closed his eyes again, he had a real-looking smile on his face. "Ahhh," he said. "That's nice. Now if I just had a beautiful nurse. Preferably topless."

Sharon laughed for him and kissed the corner of his mouth. "I think that can be arranged, sugar."

_**# # #**_

**This chapter is dedica****ted to my dad, who refused to carry on the "family tradition".**_**  
**_


	74. E-Day plus 15 years 1 week: 2020 Dom

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 1 WEEK

[New Jacinto, Vectes: 2020 hours]

Mary was with her two favorite men. Walking on her left was the one with the cloth on his head and an old hurt on his face. Mary had old hurts on her face, too, and one in her eye. She didn't remember where she had gotten them, but she knew she wasn't born with them. Mary was one of the grown-up people, but she didn't remember doing the growing-up part. Whenever she tried to remember before Sharon and her traveling friends, she couldn't see any pictures. Most people said their memories were like old pictures, but Mary didn't have any old pictures. Sometimes if she was very, very tired or very, very happy she could remember feelings, but no pictures. Sometimes the feelings came with sounds, like voices or songs.

Mary had a lot of feeling-memories about the man on her right, the one with the coffee-color eyes and the sugar-taste mouth. Most of them were happy-feeling memories, and a few were sad-feeling memories. She liked the happy-feeling ones better because they made her feel warm and cozy inside, like her heart was wearing a blanket.

It was after dark but there were lots of lights on outside. They were walking in the market where people sell things that aren't free. Mary knew what paper money was, but Don told her people hadn't used money for years. Instead they traded for things or used rash-un slips. One time Beard picked her up after school and they went to the market to wait for Don, and Beard fixed a radio for the sweets-lady so Mary could have an apple with sugar and sinn ... sinna ... the kind-of-spicy brown stuff. Then Beard said not to tell anyone that he got her a sweet. He said if she told then everyone would want him to fix stuff so they could have sweets, and he didn't have enough time to do that.

Almost no one would take Don and Mary's rash-un slips. At first Mary was sad because she thought it meant people didn't like her and Don, and that made her cry. Then Don and the man who sold buttons said it was because they wanted her to save her slips for expensive things, like clothes. So instead Don did things for the sellers, like carrying heavy things or talking to mean people for them. Mean people weren't so mean when Don and Mark talked to them.

Mary let go of Mark's arm so she could feel in her little leather purse for the rash-un slips she had been saving. One of the sewing ladies was making a new shirt for Mary, and it cost fourteen slips. Her new shirt was going to be purple with little white swirls and flowers sewn into it. Mary didn't remember lots of things from growing up, but she did remember that her favorite color was purple, and Don's favorite color was red.

Don was wearing a red shirt with buttons on the front. He looked very han-some in it. The red shirt made his lips look redder too, which made Mary want to touch them. Misses Will-Son and Mary had had a long talk about touching in public. It was okay for Mary to touch Don above the waist and get short kisses in public. It was okay for her to touch Don below the waist when they were home alone, but she didn't do that a lot because Don made funny noises and turned red. Then he would go and take a shower.

Mark was still wearing his metal shirt. Don had a metal shirt for work, too, but he took it off after work so Mary could have soft hugs instead of hard ones. Mark almost never took off his metal. It made him look a lot bigger, and he said that was good for when he had to talk to mean people about being nice.

Mark did not look very happy today. He never smiled, but Mary could tell when he was happy because his face looked younger. When he was sad he looked old, and he looked very old today. Don had said not to ask him what was wrong, though. He said Mark didn't want to talk about it, but if Don found out he would tell her. Don said mary'd couples told each other everything. They weren't supposed to have secrets because that made an invisible wall between them, and being mary'd was about being together, not being on the other side of a wall. Mary understood things when Don explained them. Other people weren't as good at explaining as Don and Misses Will-Son. Don knew just what to say to make Mary understand, and he never got mad if he had to say it over and over again all the time when she forgot.

Mary rested her head against the side of his arm as they walked. She was so happy when she was walking with Don in the market. Things smelled good, and tasted good, and sometimes there was music and people laughing. Maybe Don could get Mark a sweet to make him feel better.

Don and Mary and Mark stopped at the sewing lady to buy Mary's new shirt. The lady smiled very big and took a brown paper package from under her table.

"Here you are, Misses Sunny-Ah-Go," she said. "All done! Is it just like you wanted?"

The shirt was so very pretty! It was a deep, dark purple and the neck and the part down the front where the buttons held it together had little white flowers with little white vines connecting them. "Oh, I love it!" Mary said. She wanted to wear it right away, but Misses Will-Son said it was very bad manners to change your clothes in public.

Don smiled as big as the sewing lady. "I'm glad you like it, sweetie," he said to Mary. "Do you want to give the nice lady the slips to pay for it?"

"Yes!" Mary was very proud that she remembered the shirt cost fourteen slips. She could count up to thirty now, and when she could count up to one hundred she would get to move across the hall to the next class up, where they got to learn to make letters that were their names on paper. Mary would miss her friends from her class, but Don said she would still see them all the time at school, and making new friends would be even more fun because then she would have twice as many friends as before.

Mary counted out the slips one by one and said each number out loud. It was easy to remember the order of the numbers when Don was there. He had his hand on the middle of her back while she counted, and the names of the numbers came out in an unbroken chain with no trouble at all. Everything was easier to remember when Don was with her. The old doctor lady said feeling good made remembering things easier for Mary. Sometimes Mary would feel not good, but then Don would say words to her that made sense. And even if they didn't make sense right away, just his voice made her feel better.

The sewing lady took the slips and Mary took the shirt. It was soft, softer than the shirt she had on. Mary reminded herself to wait until they got home to put it on.

"If you ever decide you want a new skirt, in a week I'll have some lovely blue fabric," the sewing lady said. "Misses Thomas is making it, and she is very good. It's not silk, but it feels just like it."

"Silk?" Mary asked. "Is that a kind of milk? How do you make a shirt out of milk?"

"No, sweetie," Don said, smiling his happy smile that he used when he got to explain something to her. He loved explaining, he said. "Silk is a fabric, but it's very smooth and thin, and it doesn't come from a cow."

"Where does it come from, then?"

"Silk worms."

"Worms?" Don never said things that weren't true, but Mary had a hard time figuring out how worms could make fabric. Cows were so big, and worms were so tiny.

"Yes, it's like ... like a blanket they make on the outside of their cuh-koons to keep them warm while they change from worms to butterflies."

"There's a cuh-koon growing a butterfly in a cage in our classroom!" It looked like a weird pea pod, but sometimes you could see the bug moving inside.

"Oh, how nice!" said the sewing lady. "Is it a silk worm butterfly?"

"I don't know. I would have to ask Misses Will-Son. Do all silk worms make blue silk?"

"No, Misses Sunny-Ah-Go. Silk worms make uncolored silk. Then we take the strands of silk and make them blue, and then – oh, my goodness! Are you all right, Sarr-Gent?"

'Sarr-Gent' was another name for Mark. When Mary looked, Mark was bent over with his hands on his knees. When Mary listened, he was making wheezy sounds.

"Mark-Us?" Don said. "Are you okay?"

Mark tried to speak, but no words came out. He was breathing a lot of little breaths, but they didn't seem to be enough. When he fell down on his knees and made louder wheezes, Mary started getting scared. No pictures came to her, but she remembered not being able to breathe, like Mark. She remembered air that smelled heavy, like rotten eggs. Mark's hands started pulling at the metal shirt and he said in a tiny wheezy voice, "Get it off. Get it off, I can't breathe. It's getting tighter." She remembered feeling metal under her hands. She remembered pounding on it and yelling.

Mary realized she was yelling right now, not just remembering yelling. "No, no, no!" her voice was saying. "Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!" Her head hurt, and everything smelled like rotten eggs, and Mark couldn't get out of the metal, and she couldn't get out of the metal, and _no one can get out and everyone is crying and it's dark and it smells bad and she's alone and there are monsters outside but there is no air inside and that's worse and she's going to die in here, inside this metal, and she'll never seen Dom again and she yells over and over again let me out let me out let me out Dom help me Dom Dom help me Dom—_

"Mary-Ah! Mary-Ah! Wake up, baby, it's okay. You're safe." Dom's voice was talking to her, and Dom's arms were holding her and the air didn't smell rotten anymore.

"It's okay, Mary-Ah," Mark's voice said. "I'm okay, I got it off. I'll be fine."

"You'll be fine," Dom's voice said. "Everybody's fine, baby, just breathe. We're all just going to breathe."

Mary opened her eyes. It was still nighttime and Mark was kneeling on the ground and lots of people were standing around. Dom was holding her in his lap where he sat on the ground next to the sewing-lady's table.

Dom was wearing the face he had when he was looking for her at school, very big eyes and a wrinkle between his eyebrows.

"Here I am," she said. Her voice was scratchy from all the yelling. "I came back from the memory." She felt shaky, but not scared anymore. "I'm not scared anymore," she said so Dom would know she wasn't. "I'm okay, Dom."

"I'm so glad, baby, I—what did you call me?"

Mary didn't understand the question. "I called you your name."

"Yes, you did, but ... how did you say it?"

"Dom. That's right, isn't it? It's spelled D-O-M, so it's said like 'Dom'."

Dom's frown smoothed out and he just looked surprised.

"She called you Dom," Mark said to him. "That's good."

"It is." Dom started smiling at her. "It really is. I can't—I'm so—" Dom couldn't find words. Mary knew what that was like.

Then she remembered Mark had had trouble breathing. "Are you okay, too, Mark? You said your metal shirt was getting tighter."

Mark looked down. The pieces of his metal shirt were lying all around him. "Yeah, I'm okay. I got it off. I'll have someone fix it."

"You'd [naughty word Misses Will-Son said not to say] well better!" said a big voice. It was Huff-Man, the old one who always wore a hat. "I can't have gears getting squeezed to death by their own [naughty word] arm-er!" He kicked at a round piece. "Never trusted this tek completely myself. Have Baird or Sharon Keller take a look at it."

"Baird's still in the hospital."

"Keller, then. Double time, Fee-Nicks. I want to know if this is going to happen again."

"Yes, sir, kernel," Mark said, and he touched his forehead with the thumb-side of his hand. "Right away, sir."

"And you, young lady." Huff-Man knelt next to her and Dom. Sometimes Huff-Man was scary and sometimes he wasn't. This time he wasn't. "Are you going to be okay? Do you need to see Doctor Hay-Man?" He had big eyes and a wrinkle just like Dom did.

"No, I think I'll be okay," Mary said. It was true. As scary as the feeling-memory had been, remembering it had let all that scared-ness out, and it didn't come back. She was a little bit tired, though, and she wanted to go home and try on her new shirt and drink some tea.

"I'm a little bit tired, though, and I want to go home and try on my new shirt and drink some tea," she told them. Both Dom and Huff-Man lost the little wrinkle between their eyes, which went back to normal size. Huff-Man looked around and found Mary's new shirt. He dusted it off and folded it nicely before he gave it to her.

"I think that's a good idea, Misses Sunny-Ah-Go."

Dom hugged her to get her attention. "Do you want to walk or should I carry you?"

Mary could walk, but she wanted him to carry her. "Carry me, please." She held the shirt to her chest like a teddy-bear so she wouldn't drop it, and Dom stood up with her in his arms. Not all men could do that, but Dom was very strong. Sometimes she had feeling-memories of Dom's strong arms holding her, although she couldn't remember where or when or see anything. But she remembered his warm chest, and his strong arms and the way he smelled like the earth and something spicy.

She smelled his earthy red shirt and sighed. "Take me home, Dom?"

Dom squeezed her in a hug as he walked back to their house. "Always, baby. I'll always bring you home."

_**# # #**_

**Chapters have been slow for a while because big things are coming for all three couples, and I want to set them up just right. Don't worry, I haven't got writer's block!**


	75. E-Day plus 15 years 1 week: 2100 Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 1 WEEK

[Vectes Naval Base: 2100 hours]

Marcus had thought he was doing pretty well until that conversation about blue silk.

The tightness in his chest had started around 2000 hours, and at first he'd assumed it was because he'd breathed in some of the smoke from the burning of the Imulsion rig. He figured he'd go back to the med center and get an oxygen treatment after taking Maria for her shopping excursion. She was so enamored with getting a new blouse that he wanted to be there for the purchase. Her girlish excitement about small luxuries made refugee life seem a lot more bearable. It wasn't only that she found delight in little things like running water and salt shakers, it was that she continued to find them delightful long after she'd first noticed them.

New Jacinto was basically a tent city that had grown up just outside the walls of the naval base to house the overflow from the military complex. The Gorasni and a lot of Stranded were situated there, as well as things that weren't a priority for the limited space inside the base. Like the market.

There were makeshift booths for just about every commodity that the COG's current society had to offer. (Dom and Marcus made sure to steer Maria well clear of the red-light district.) But the majority of the non-living space was taken up with booths that sold handmade goods and novelty food. A lot of Gears saved their ration slips to spend in the New Jacinto market, where the merchants sold everything from mulled cider to new clothing. The richest (relatively speaking) of the merchants were the old women who had saleable skills like making shoes, clothing and jewelry. Most people under sixty had office jobs before the Locust War that hadn't taught them skills like sewing and cobbling. During the war most COG citizens had learned to do patch repairs and make basic clothing, but if you wanted fine fabrics, gift-quality goods or simply clothes that didn't look like they'd been cut out of a burlap sack, you went to the elderly people in the market to buy them.

Dom and Maria loved the market, and Marcus had to admit it was fairly pleasant as tent cities went. The smell of spices, roasting meat and baking bread were mouth-watering compared to the bland odors of the basic rations served to the Gears in the mess hall. They got 2.5 times the regular calorie allotment, but that didn't mean those calories tasted good. A lot of merchants loved the tale of "the Lost Lady" and rarely accepted ration slips from the Santiagos, so Maria got a lot of free treats. After the couple had moved on, Marcus often tipped the merchants generously. It eased Marcus's mind to know that Maria would never go hungry even when she wandered off, and since everyone knew who she was, someone usually got her to stick around their booth for a few minutes until Dom arrived. A few _panicky_ minutes during which Dom practically lost his mind chasing that green dot on his tracker, but he was right as rain as soon as she was back at his side.

Marcus's own panic attack had hit him as suddenly as running full-tilt into a brick wall. The seamstress who made Maria's blouse had started talking about blue silk, and the instant association with Anya's dress had knocked the wind out of him.

Up until then he'd thought he was okay with letting her go. It was the best thing for her: being free to live a fuller life without the constant threat of domestic violence hanging over her head. He'd even found the opening he needed to tell Cole she was available. "Moving on" from a woman like Anya was impossible, but he thought he'd at least nailed down the "letting go" part. He thought he'd accomplished that until it started feeling like his armor was trying to introduce his sternum to his spine.

His breath had gone out in a rush when the memory of his date with Anya popped up without warning. That had been the night he realized he didn't just love her, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. And now she was gone. Not only was she his ex, she was living clear across the island. Indefinitely. Anything could be happening to her over there. Stranded attacked Pelruan their first night on Vectes, and there had been only Delta squad to take down sixty armed men flooding in to show the COG this was "their" island. There had been burning buildings, gunfire, explosions. People shooting at Anya. Thankfully she had hopped in an APC with a machine-gun turret.

In the market every time he breathed out the gel layer seemed to expand, leaving less and less room for him to breathe. He'd thought the breathing problem was just in his head until he started wheezing. His lungs closed down so much there was a distinct whistling sound every time he tried to breathe in. His brain stem was convinced the armor was suffocating him, and his hands scrabbled at the seals of their own accord. "Get it off," he had whispered. "Get it off, it's choking me." Dom had moved to help him but then Maria started screaming something about being trapped. Marcus was able to point, telling Dom to take care of his wife first. Some retired Gear had gotten Marcus onto his back and worked the seals out of their catches. The locking seals wore down in a pattern specific to the user's particular hand motions, so getting another Gear's armor unsealed was tricky, but the old soldier had managed it. Once the breastplate was released Marcus's survival instincts were convinced that the danger was gone. He could breathe again.

Dom had been able to call his wife back from whatever hellhole she'd gone to in her mind. Marcus had accidentally induced a post-traumatic flashback on the mentally fragile Maria. She responded quickly to Dom's attentions, but unfortunately Hoffman had been nearby so Marcus wasn't going to get off the hook. He'd offered the lame excuse that the gel layer in his armor had malfunctioned. That had explained away the panic attack, but now he had to take the "faulty" armor to Sharon Keller per the Colonel's orders.

Sharon had been tinkering with the armor for over half an hour, running wires into the gel and performing various expansion and deflation tests, looking for contaminants, faults in the circuitry, battle damage, anything to explain the supposed error. Her brow was knitted in a constant frown.

Marcus had been sitting on the musty couch, trying to think up some way to explain the "malfunction". Sharon would soon figure out there was nothing wrong with it, and she was far too perceptive to fool. She'd realize it was all in his head and suggest he go in for a psych evaluation. Marcus stuffed that emotional jack-in-the-box into one of his palace's steamer trunks. Worrying wouldn't help him get out of a visit to the shrink.

He hadn't needed an excuse for his "withdrawal symptoms" in prison. Everyone assumed the constant shaking, severe introversion and paranoia were normal for a spoiled rich kid suddenly thrown in with the riff-raff. After about two months the symptoms had petered away to nothing. The nightmares had disappeared too. For the first time in decades he hadn't gone to sleep wondering what horrors his brain would serve up tonight. He was locked up tight in a maximum security prison that kept him in a cell 23 hours a day, and during those three hours out in the mess hall or the exercise yard the only people he could hurt if/when his self-control finally snapped were ones who more than deserved it.

It worked both ways, unfortunately. That first night after the jailbreak Marcus dreamed he'd cracked Dom's chest open with a rib-spreader. While Dom was still alive. A Slab inmate had told him how he'd done that very thing to his girlfriend, which was what landed him in maximum security. Marcus hadn't dreamed about it until he got out of prison. Within the walls of Jacinto Maximum Security Prison, everything slid off him like he was waterproof. Outside in the world every little thing stuck like glue. His palace had a lot more steamer trunks now.

Marcus sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. God, he missed the Slab.

Finally Sharon stopped analyzing the armor. She didn't look at him but instead turned her back to rest against the workbench and crossed her arms, pursing her lips in thought.

'_Shit,'_ Marcus thought_. 'Here it comes. Now I'm going to have an anxiety disorder in my medical record. Some nosy clerk is going to read it and spread a "Fenix is nuts" rumor all over the island. That is the last goddamn thing I need.'_

Sharon looked at Rookie, who was stretched out on the floor as close to Marcus as he would allow. Jace had been walking perimeter with the dog and dropped him off at the shop a few minutes ago. She nodded at the canine. "How's Rookie doing?"

That wasn't what Marcus had expected. By now he should have learned to expect the unexpected from this pixie-like woman.

"Fine, I guess."

"Hmmm."

"What?"

She gestured at the hound. "Seems a little subdued to me." Sharon cocked her head at Marcus. "Have you been talking to him?"

"Talking to him? Why in the world would I talk to a dog?"

"They like the sound of their master's voice. It's soothing. Makes them feel accepted by their alpha wolf."

Marcus frowned at the dog. Rookie lifted his head and thumped his tail a few times when he saw Marcus looking at him.

"See? Even looking at him is enough to make his day. If you talk to him, he'll feel more accepted, which is everything to a dog. They are extremely social animals and their alpha's approval does a lot for their self-worth."

"Self-worth? You've got to be kidding."

She shook her head, looking completely serious. "Nope, not kidding. A dog's emotional state directly affects their performance in the field. A happy dog is a good worker, period." She shrugged matter-of-factly. "He needs you to talk to him."

"About what?" He couldn't imagine what a person would say to an animal that couldn't talk back. It'd be like having a conversation with a rock.

"Doesn't matter. It's the tone of your voice and the fact that you're speaking to him that matters. You could read him the dictionary and he wouldn't know the difference."

Sharon turned back to the workbench with a flourish. "Anyhow, about your armor—"

'_Great. Here it comes.'_

"I couldn't get it to repeat the error, but that doesn't mean there isn't one."

She wasn't going to call him out on his bluff? She had to know there wasn't anything wrong with it.

Sharon nodded to herself as if the non-proof made perfect sense. "It's probably still functional, but there's no sense taking unnecessary risks." A sneaky look crossed her face. "Guess you'll have to replace it with another set."

"There aren't many unused sets just hanging around these days." Plates were too scarce to have backup sets, and recovering a deceased Gear's rig was usually fruitless because anything that brought down a Gear usually destroyed their armor in the process.

"Ah, but fortunately for you ..." Sharon indicated a wire mannequin in a dark corner. "I've just finished a prototype armor."

Marcus raised an eyebrow. "And you want me to be the guinea pig?"

"Exactly." Sharon made no attempt to hide her intentions. That was one of the things Marcus appreciated about her. "It occurred to me that now that we live on an island, Gears have a very good chance of falling overboard."

Marcus was immediately a fan of her idea. "Like when the Lambent eel blew up the _Coral Star _and Bernie and I had to swim for it."

"Precisely. So this new type ..." she wheeled the dummy out of the corner. Marcus stood to have a closer look, and Rookie copied him. It seemed the dog wanted to be in on everything he did. "This new type," she continued once she'd placed it in the middle of the floor, "has all the previous upgrades plus this right here." Sharon had to stand on her tiptoes to point out the extra ring of gel around the neck opening. Regular COG armor had a black gel layer and a large hump on the back. Marcus's armor was from the early years of the Locust War and made him look hunchbacked because it was made before they had worked out how to downsize the components. This new armor had a breastplate that bowed out quite a bit further than his old set, and a smaller mag-gen hump on the back. The neck opening was quite a bit wider as well.

"This separate ring around the neck isn't gel, it's a buoyancy ring."

"Like a life vest."

"Yes, that's right. When the sensors are immersed in water it generates a low-level anti-grav field inside it that should keep a Gear's head above water even if he or she is unconscious."

"I like that idea. A lot." If he and Bernie had been wearing full plates when they'd gone for a dip, they would have sunk like rocks. This new armor could let him wear the whole kit at sea without the danger of drowning.

Sharon beamed. "I thought you might. The neck and arm holes are a bit larger as well because the weather here is a lot warmer." It was true that some of the inexperienced Gears hadn't realized that the ten-degree difference would mean dehydration happened a lot faster. Hayman usually scheduled a half hour each day to chew out the ones who'd had to come in for IV fluids.

She rapped the enlarged chest piece with her knuckles. "There's also another layer in here that can regulate body temperature. Say you fall in the water; anything colder than seventy degrees Fahrenheit leeches away body heat. The regulating gel will warm up your core. Say there's a heat wave but we still need you out on patrol; it works like a cold pack to keep you from getting heat stroke. That layer is what makes the armor so big in the front. So you'll look even more like a giant, but you won't have to worry about drowning or inclement weather. And it's about thirty pounds lighter."

"Now I _really_ like that." Even during times of relative peace, Gears didn't have to pump weights to maintain their muscle mass. Toting around a twenty-pound Lancer while wearing over a hundred pounds of metal was enough of a workout. The decreased weight of this new armor might help his hind-brain recognize it wasn't trying to suffocate him.

"If you don't mind, I'm going to dismantle your old armor and use it for parts. We'll tell Hoffman the armor malfunctioned from sitting around gathering dust for four years while you were incarcerated."

Marcus stared her right in the eyes. "That's what we'll tell him, huh?"

"Yup. Some mumbo jumbo about the sensors needing constant use or they start corroding. It just happened to take eight months for the corrosion to foul up the wiring."

"That's what happened?"

"That's what happened." Sharon crossed her arms and nodded at the dog. "_If _you talk to Rookie." Her hazel eyes didn't blink.

"Ah." Bribery, of a sort. Marcus looked down at the dog. Rookie looked up at him with ... well, with puppy-dog eyes. The tip of his tail wagged tentatively. "I guess I can do that." The tail wagged more confidently.

"Great! Let me show you how to put on this bad boy."

It was pretty much like standard armor except that instead of closing from the sides like a clamshell, the armor had hinged shoulder "straps" that allowed it to be put on over the Gear's head like a life vest. Tabs on the front half clipped into slots in the back half, and they locked down when the seals expanded the gel layer. Sharon's added temperature layer contacted Marcus from mid-sternum to waist, and the coolness made him shiver at first.

"Yeah, sorry, I should have mentioned it's a bit chilly until it registers your skin temperature and starts adjusting itself."

"No problem. Minor inconvenience." Considering the number of bullets that Sharon's mag fields had prevented from hitting him over the course of the last fifteen years, a moment of coldness was more than worth it. "Imagine how much Delta will enjoy being the first squad with air-conditioned armor."

Marcus didn't think his quip was that funny, but Sharon laughed loudly. _'Engineering humor, I guess.'_

"All right, Sarge," she said, slapping the shoulder of the armor and looking it over proudly. "Good to go. Evening's a good time to take it for a test drive and see if the heating works properly. I'll radio Hoffman and tell him about the corroded wiring."

"Thanks, Sharon. For the armor."

"You're welcome, Marcus. For the armor."

Marcus didn't know what else to say about their little conspiracy, so he just nodded. "Come on, Rook," he said, patting the side of his leg. The dog sprang obediently to his side. _'Bloodhounds really do live to serve.'_

"Later, Marcus." Sharon gave him a little goodbye wave and turned back to some tangle of wires spilling out of a plastic casing like a gutted fish.

"Yeah." She had probably stopped listening as soon as she turned around. Sharon was instantly absorbed in her project, eyes flashing back and forth across the gadget like a scanning laser. _'Definitely like Baird. But with less sneering.'_

Marcus was officially off-duty, but his appetite was still suppressed and he didn't feel like sleeping or intruding on Dom and Maria's time alone. Instead he went up to the lookout post on top of the base artillery and relieved the sleepy private of his post. "I'll take it from here, kid. Go hit the sack."

"Thanks, Sergeant Fenix! I thought I was going to lose my mind staring at waves all night."

"No problem."

Finally he was alone. Well, alone with Rookie. _'At least he won't try to strike up a conversation.'_ Then he remembered that was kind of like what he'd agreed to do. He looked down at the dog. The bloodhound somehow managed to look expectant. Marcus sighed. "Fine. I hope you like science, because that's most of what I've got memorized."

Marcus set his eyes on autopilot scanning the dark ocean for suspicious lights, and in his mind he _stops on the front step of Haldane Hall and looks back into the fog. He does that two-fingered whistle Dom is so bad at, and Rookie lopes out of the mists and up the steps._

_Before Marcus opens the door he admonishes the dog. "Don't you dare pee on the rugs in here, they're antiques." Rookie appears to accept this caveat. Marcus opens the tall doors and they go in. The doors shut themselves behind them._

_From his place in the hall Marcus can hear the Santiago brothers in the kitchen arguing with Maria and Mrs. Flores about exactly how much oregano should go on cheese pizza. Apparently the men are in favor of using the whole bottle, and the women insist it should be sprinkled in an even covering. Marcus smiles a bit, knowing the girls will win out like they always do._

_The evening salon is empty. Marcus takes a right and goes down the east hallway to his mother's lab, which looks like a cross between a scientific institute and a library. In among the overstuffed armchairs and cherry-wood coffee tables are a mass spectrometer, a fume hood, a centrifuge, and many other accoutrements of her trade. Currently Mom is at her computer, rendering the skeleton of a strange six-legged mouse._

"_Hey, Mom. Mind if I bring the dog in here?"_

_She turns in surprise, her chestnut brown hair swinging around her face. "Oh, you have a pet now? That's wonderful. I always thought you'd like a dog."_

"_Sharon says I should read to him. Can I borrow one of your books?" Marcus's mother would give him anything without question, but he likes to use the manners she spent so much time teaching him._

"_Of course. Why don't you try one of the ones I wrote?"_

"_I'll do that, thanks."_

_Marcus takes a book from the crowded shelves and settles himself in an armchair. Anya materializes in another chair across the table from him. That's odd. Usually she just walks in because it's more lifelike than teleporting around the palace._

_She doesn't usually wear the blue silk dress, either. Normally she only wears it for their anniversaries: the day they met, their first night together, and the evening of their date. She looks classy and gorgeous, as always. The V-shaped neckline stops just short of showing cleavage, and the hemline reaches below her knees, with the modest slit up the left leg only rising to mid-thigh. The blue brings out her green eyes and puts a rosy blush in her cheeks. She smiles brightly at him._

"_What are you reading?"_

_Marcus tips the book so she can see the cover. "Principles of Morphology, by Dr. Elain Fenix."_

"_Already a university classic, or so I hear." Anya gets up and switches to an armchair next to Marcus. "Read it to me?"_

"_Sure. I was already going to read it to Rookie. I don't think he'll mind sharing." The dog settles at Anya's feet, his chin grazing the toe of her black high heel. Anya rests her head against Marcus's shoulder so she can read as he is reciting the book out loud. Her long curls spill over his upper arm like the gold braid on a parade uniform and she rests her hand on his forearm.  
_

"_Principles of Morphology by Doctor Elain Fenix. Forward by Doctor Matthew Sanders." In the palace, Rookie closes his eyes contentedly. Marcus skips the forward and goes straight to his mother's work._

In the real world, Marcus continued out loud. "The field of making testable hypotheses of evolutionary relationships is referred to as morphological systematics."

He looked down at Rookie. The dog was looking up with the canine equivalent of rapt attention.

"Recognition of species boundaries is fundamental to many biological disciplines, yet remains problematic," Marcus said to him.

Rookie settled down on his haunches and thumped his tail against the concrete roof. Marcus leaned against the parapet. "All right," he conceded, and went back to scanning the ocean. "Prepare for a crash course in science." More thumps from the tail.

Before Marcus continued, he realized he was thinking of Rookie as a "he" now, instead of an "it". Interesting.

"One difficulty is the existence of morphologically cryptic sibling species. Sibling species commonly may form in organisms, such as autogenic parasites ..."

Rookie, as it turned out, was a very good listener.

_**# # #**_

_****_**First person to comment on this chapter will be the one hundredth review! Woot-woot! **


	76. E-Day plus 15 years 1 week: 0340 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 1 WEEK

[Vectes Naval Base: 0340 hours]

Cole got up in the middle of the night to check on Baird. He was used to being the only person who honestly cared about Baird's welfare, and he didn't trust the hospital staff to watch him closely. It was a pleasant surprise to find Sharon there by his side. Baird was asleep again.

All but two other patients had been moved out of the triage lobby, and those were on the other side of the large space. Cole wouldn't be surprised if not giving Baird an actual bed in an actual hospital room was the staff's way of getting back at him for being a dick. Baird usually did behave like a dick to anyone who slighted him in the least. It was a vicious cycle: someone annoyed him and Baird reacted way out of proportion, so it got around that he was a jerk, which made people less likely to be nice when they met him, and that annoyed him, making him over-react, and round and round it went_. 'Poor kid,'_ Cole thought for the millionth time, _'life wouldn't be so hard if you could just learn to forgive and forget.'_ His eyes focused on Sharon's silhouette as he came up on Baird's gurney. _'Especially if you could forgive __her__. 'Cause it sure don't seem like you forgot her.'_ In all the time Cole had known his favorite loudmouth, Baird had never had a girlfriend or even a one-night-stand. _'And now I know why.'_

With difficulty Cole dialed down his usual megaphone voice. "Hey, Firecracker. You come to check on our boy?"

Sharon lifted her head from where she'd had it pillowed on her folded arms. "Hey, Cole." She sounded pretty sleepy. "Yeah, I figured he'd be kinda low on their list of priorities around here. But with the near-shock and all ..."

"Me too. Same reason." Cole chuckled a bit. "He's prickly as a hedgehog, and just as soft on the inside."

Sharon yawned and stretched her arms. "You've known him a long while?"

"Fifteen years, baby."

Cole could just make out her features in the glow from the hallway. She was looking at him with raised eyebrows. "Since E-Day?"

"Near enough. I enlisted three days after the Grubs showed up. Met Baird about a month into the war." Cole shook his head fondly as he looked at Baird. "First time I saw him he was in a locker-room brawl with two guys."

Sharon laughed too. "Me too! Some older boys had taken something from James. Can't remember what. Point is, he was going at it with two big bullies on the playground the first time I laid eyes on him."

"That sounds about right."

She cocked her head as she looked at Baird. "What's he like?" Sharon sounded almost wistful.

"Sorry?"

"What's he like now?" She waved a vague hand. "I don't really know him anymore. He's hard to read. I used to know what he was thinking just by looking at his face. Now I haven't got a clue."

This was one of those opportunities Bernie had coached him on this morning: 'Put in a good word every chance you've got, but real casual-like,' she'd said.

Cole shrugged in what he hoped was a 'casual-like' manner. "I could tell you, but I've got a touch of hero-worship, so I'm biased."

This time she cocked her head at Cole. "How so?"

"He saved my life our first time in combat."

Her eyebrows went way up. "Really?"

"Yup. First bunch of Grubs I saw made me think of how the Locust had killed my folks on E-Day. I charged right into 'em and ran myself clean out of bullets. Couldn't get the next clip in before this big ugly sumbitch was right up in my face. I was thinking I was gonna see my folks real soon, then _splat_! Its head explodes. I look behind me and there's this blond smartass who says, 'Those things aren't rushing up to get your autograph. Kill the assholes at a nice safe distance.'"

Sharon giggled. "Yeah, that sounds like Damon all right. So you've been looking out for him all this time? Because there's no way he'd have survived this long without a buddy watching his back."

"Me and Baird, we're a pretty good team," Cole said proudly.

"He didn't have many friends in school, so I thought ... well, to be honest, I thought he was dead. That's why I didn't—" she stopped suddenly and looked at him warily. "How much did Damon tell you about ... uh ..."

"About you?" Honesty, Bernie had told him. Go with honesty every time, just spin it the right way. "I got the basic rundown. You two were pretty serious in high school but you married James instead."

"_Had to_ marry James. For the record."

'_Had to__? Baird didn't mention that part. Hmm. I'll get the truth out of him later.'_

"And we weren't just 'pretty serious'. We were engaged." She was watching his face closely. Cole's expression gave him away, like always. "Didn't mention that, did he? Well, no wonder. If a friend crossed Damon, they were dead to him." Her tired eyes went to Baird again. "I'm sure I was too."

"You aren't dead to him now, that's for certain. It's all, 'Sharon this' and 'Sharon that', and 'DENIS, DENIS, DENIS'." Cole smiled. "He sure loves that little guy."

DENIS flickered into view at the mention of his name. "DENIS was our brainchild. Not his first robot, of course, but the one we spent the most time on. Turned out to have quite the personality, too." DENIS bobbed a few times as if he were nodding.

"Anyway," Cole continued, "to answer your question: He's ... what's the word Anya used ... abrasive." Sharon nodded, looking unsurprised. "Loud. Opinionated. Plenty of sass. Likes machines more than he does most people. Doesn't take shit from anybody. Very loyal once you get to know him."

"Hmm. Yeah, that sounds like Damon, just ... I don't know. Something's different. Not just the physical stuff. Something ... hell, I don't know. He's ... angrier. Harder." She snorted humorlessly. "Maybe I'm just not used to being on the outside. He's always been prickly, like you said, but it wasn't directed at me before. Unless you count when we broke up, and the first year we knew each other."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Fought like cats and dogs the whole of second grade." Some of her smile came back as she looked at him.

"What changed?"

She frowned a little, like she was trying to remember. "I think I suggested a truce. I got tired of him throwing pebbles at me all the time. Dipping my hair in glue, stuff like that."

"A truce? And he went for it?"

"Sure did. Guess he was tired of fighting, too."

"Huh. 'Tired of fighting' doesn't sound like the Baird I know."

She smirked. "It probably wouldn't have worked if I weren't a girl."

Cole laughed quietly. "Probably not."

Sharon patted the thin mattress next to Baird's injured leg. "I'm beat. Would you mind taking care of an injured Gear for a while? Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"Gear up, sugar," Baird said.

Sharon jumped. "Oh! I didn't realize you were awake."

Baird didn't respond. His eyes had only opened a slit, and they fluttered shut again in seconds. He started to snore lightly.

"Huh," Cole said. "He doesn't usually snore."

"Occasionally, when he's sleeping on his back." Sharon leaned close to his ear and said softly, "Damon, turn on your side." To Cole's surprise, Baird did it immediately without waking up.

"That's a neat trick. I'll have to try it sometime."

Sharon smiled. "I don't know about that. If he wakes up with a guy's face that close, he might just punch it."

"You're probably right. Listen, you get some sleep. I'll take care of our boy." Calling Baird 'ours' was another Bernie Tip. It subtly included Sharon in Baird's circle of friends, or something like that. _'Man, this girl stuff is complicated.'_

"Good. They gave him another dose of painkillers just before I got here. I think it was because he was being obnoxious to the night staff, not because he needed it."

"Now that _definitely_ sounds like the Baird I know."

She laughed once more. "Yeah, that's him all right. You'll radio me if anything changes?"

"You got it." Cole gave her a casual salute, and she returned it with a grin. "'Night, Firecracker."

"Good night, Cole Train."

Sharon was so tired her feet were dragging. Or maybe it was because she didn't want to leave. Then again, she'd dragged her feet on the way here, too. Being around Damon was like living in a paradox. She wanted to be around him, but from the back he looked an awful lot like Jocelin. She wanted to hear his voice, but the fact that it was half an octave lower now made an unpleasant shiver run down her spine. She wanted to touch him, but any physical contact made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and not in a good way. In fact, she had to make a conscious effort to call him 'Damon' instead of 'Baird'. Her mind knew the facts, but her heart refused to recognize him as the boy she had loved. The boy she still loved.

"Gear up, sugar," he'd said.

'_He can't possibly remember that, not under heavy sedation. It was almost sixteen years ago.'_

Sharon's feet took her through the base faster and faster until she was jogging. As soon as she got into her room she took the little brown album out of her desk drawer and went through her little ritual of comfort. She had resisted the pull of the album since finding out he was still alive, but touching him today while she sewed up his leg and knowing he'd nearly died twice had shattered her self-control. She needed to see him. Happy. Unbroken. Hers.

It took her two hours to go through the pages, savoring each memory like a fine chocolate. The beach. School. Crevasse Ski Resort. The creek. Some photos had ticket stubs or bits of cloth preserved with them. One of the early ones had a snip of white-blond hair. She always wanted to touch these treasures, but introducing finger oils into the sterile plastic environment could ruin the mementos forever. Instead she ran her fingers over the tiny bumps in the plastic like a blind woman reading Braille.

When she got to the end she took the un-scrapbooked photos out and spread them around her in a semi-circle. These were no less important, but there were only so many pages and she didn't want to split up the album. The leather book was one she'd had since she was ten, a birthday gift from her mother. It had sentimental value, as well as being sturdy enough to last decades. It was a bit scuffed from her travels but none the worse for wear. And James had never found it.

She wiped her hands off carefully before touching each photo, re-memorizing every line and every hue. Sharon hadn't cut James out of them from spite; she had simply wanted to keep something separate, some memories of Damon that were set apart from the new ones she had to make with her husband. Every now and then she needed to remember the days before—wait a minute.

Sharon recounted the photos. _'...thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven. No. No-no-no-no-no.'_

There were supposed to be thirty-eight. One was missing. The little pep rally photo.

"Oh, God, please ..." Sharon counted again. And again. And a fourth time. Still only thirty-seven.

She checked each of the loose photos to see if it was stuck to the back. It wasn't.

She checked each of the pages so see if it were caught between them. It wasn't.

Sharon put the album carefully back together and placed it on the bed. She went through the desk drawer to see if it had gotten stuck between the bottom and the sides. It hadn't.

She checked the other album by feel, carefully avoiding the faces of her dead family. Still nothing.

Sharon checked the floor all around the desk, then all of the other flat surfaces. She put the leather album back in the desk drawer and checked the desk's legs to see if the photo were stuck under the feet. Nothing.

It was so small, such a small square of glossy paper. Anything could have happened to it. Sharon made a concentrated effort to keep from whimpering as she searched.

She took the room apart, piece by piece.

She paged through each of her books, looked under everything, checked the pockets in her clothes, unmade the bed, called DENIS back to her room to help look, used a flashlight to look for an edge peeking through the tiny gaps in the wooden floor. Finally she took a claw-foot hammer and pulled up the floorboards.

An hour past sunrise she sat on her bed staring into the gaping hole in the floor. The photo wasn't down there. It wasn't anywhere.

She'd lost it.

Sharon put her head down on her knees and hugged her bent legs. One perfect, innocent moment with Damon was now gone forever because of her carelessness. DENIS sat on the bed next to her, trying to be comforting in his own electronic way.

Sharon wished she'd made him more cuddly.

"I lost it," she admitted to him in a whisper. "I lost the pep rally photo." Her chin quivered. DENIS inched closer and pressed himself against her leg. "I can't ... I can't remember what it looks like." She sniffed back some tears. "I know we were on the bleachers, he was hugging me and I had that little pennant, but I don't remember the rest." Sharon put her forehead to her knees again and breathed shakily for a while.

DENIS left her side, but she didn't look up, still wallowing in her self-reproach. Then the robot clicked at her in tapping code. It took a long time to communicate in that code, so DENIS usually kept his messages very short. _'Come look,'_ he said.

Sharon forced her aching bones out of bed and over to the desk. She gasped when she saw what DENIS was doing.

He had a small black-and-white projector in among his other optical equipment, and he was using it to project an enlarged copy of the pep rally photo onto the desktop. There was no color, but every other detail was present. Sharon had forgotten DENIS could project images.

"Oh, sweetheart," she said, and her eyes welled up for a good reason this time. She hugged his cold, oddly shaped shell. "Thank you, darling." She sniffed back the good tears. "Thank you so much. I ... this means a lot to me, DENIS." She stood back and looked at the photo again, then at DENIS. He somehow managed to look proud. "You," she pointed at him, "are getting an extra-special oil change. The really good stuff this time."

DENIS waved his optical sensors happily.

"Yeah," she told him. "You did good, little buddy. You did good."

**# # #**


	77. E-Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 0600 Dom

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base: 0600 hours]

When Dom woke that morning, his wife was groping him again.

'_Damn,'_ he thought_, 'this is getting harder every day. No pun intended.'_

The last week or so Maria had been uncommonly ... frisky. Mrs. Wilson had told him now that Maria's health had stabilized she was "rediscovering her sexuality", and proceeded to give him tips on how to guide his wife back into sexual intimacy. It had taken every ounce of courage he had not to cover his ears and run out yelling, "La-la-la-la-la, I can't hear you!" Dom had managed to sit there and listen to a seventy-something schoolteacher tell him how to fondle his wife, but he'd blushed so hard it felt like he had a fever. Mrs. Wilson thought that was "adorable", which only made his blushing worse. He was pink-faced for so long after that conversation that later outside Cole had asked him if he was sunburned.

This was the fifth day in a row that he'd been awakened by her slim hands tracing his musculature, getting perilously closer to the waistband of his boxers every day. Right now she was running her left hand back and forth over the squarish outlines of his abdominal muscles and humming to herself.

Mrs. Wilson—Dom blushed again just thinking about it—had told him to let Maria do whatever she wanted. If that meant she removed his clothing, so be it. But when Dom recalled the near-horrified look on Maria's face the first time she'd seen him fully undressed, he felt terribly shy. Of course, Maria had been a fifteen-year-old virgin whose doting parents had protected her from things like pictures of naked men, so his ... his ... _—'Damn, when did I get so sensitive I can't even use the real names for body parts?'_—his "package" was the first she'd seen, and Sex Ed diagrams didn't do justice to the real thing. If he had to suffer through Maria gasping, "What. Is. _That?"_ again, he just might die of embarrassment. But the schoolteacher had said that to avoid accidentally suggesting to Maria that sex was wrong, he had to act like it was totally normal.

"Because it _is_ totally normal," Mrs. Wilson said. "Her body will remember. Sexual relations between husband and wife are considered a holy sacrament, you know." Dom hadn't been able to resist covering his face with his hands at that point. He did know that, but having an old lady basically tell him, "Go bang your wife because it's spiritual," was mortifying. "See?" the teacher had said, pointing at the face-hiding Dom. "This near-shame is what you don't want to teach an emotionally fragile woman like Maria."

And it was true that Maria's tender heart was easily hurt. Once a stranger had shooed a curious Maria away from his freshly-planted tomato vines and his wife had cried for half an hour because she thought the man hated her. It had taken a lot of affirming words from Dom and a pretty hair ribbon from the vines' owner to convince her that he didn't hate her, he was just very concerned about his "baby totatoes", as she called them. Dom could only imagine what slapping her hands away from his ... his package would do to her self-esteem. Especially when she was ... _uh_ ... "excited" like this.

Dom had forced himself to go to Mrs. Wilson for advice when Maria started complaining about being "itchy". At first Dom had thought she meant the keloid scars that criss-crossed nearly the whole back side of her body. Dom had a few scars himself, and they did start itching at random times, usually for a week or so. He'd reinforced his self control and started giving her daily massages with plant oils. And she did seem to enjoy the feel of his hands working on the herring-bone pattern of raised scars. It had turned out to be not so hard to stay cool during these massages because he was continually awash in a mixture of anger, sadness, protectiveness and variations on those themes, which alternated every few seconds like a slideshow. Why would _anyone_, even Grubs, do this to Maria? She wouldn't have resisted capture or forced labor, not in her grieving madness. There would have been absolutely no reason to whip her, especially hard enough to tear so deep into the skin that keloid scars would develop from the wounds. Maybe that was why the Chimeras had picked her for their experiments: her docility. And now she was even more helpless against aggressors.

'_No one will ever hurt you again, baby. I promise. Even if I have to give my own life to keep you safe.'_

Dom would massage her back, bottom, legs, and arms for an hour or until she fell asleep, whichever came first. It was as soothing to Dom as it was to Maria. Even though the scars would never go away he felt like he was healing the hurt somehow. Apologizing for not finding her soon enough to prevent it. Promising to never let her be alone again. Maria especially liked it when he ended the massages by laying a soft kiss on each and every scar. She giggled when he kissed the ones on her bottom. Probably because every elementary school student, _ever_, thought the phrase "kiss my butt" is funny.

The problem started when Maria wanted him to massage her _front_. She said her "boo's" were itchy (she always forgot the second 'b'). Dom gave her the oil and let her do it herself while he took a _very_ cold shower. After a few days of that, she said the itchiness had spread to her stomach and legs. That's when he realized when she said "itchy" what she meant was ... _ahem _... "horny".

Dom guessed that to someone who didn't know, the fierce desire to be touched _would_ feel a lot like itchiness. The question was: When was the right time to scratch that itch?

Maria almost took that choice away from him that morning when she noticed his package was ... _er_ ... standing at attention. She reached out to touch him there in the same pleasantly curious way she did for anything new.

Dom grabbed her wrist. "Uh ... Maria ..."

She rested her chin on his chest and cocked her head, smiling that sweet smile that almost always graced her face. Even with the massive scars and the cloudy eye, she was still so beautiful.

"Yes, Dom?" His heart still skipped a beat whenever she called him 'Dom', which was all the time now.

"Do you ... know what that is?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you tell me what you think it is." No way was he going to say "penis" or any of its euphemisms to this innocent, beautiful creature. Even the medical terms sounded too crude for Maria's ears.

"Boy parts."

"Boy parts, huh?" He could work with that.

"Uh-huh. Mrs. Wilson said that boy parts and girl parts are opposite shapes so they can fit together to make a whole. Like puzzle pieces."

'_Bravo, Mrs. Wilson.'_ Dom couldn't have put it better himself if he'd been explaining it to his own kiddos.

"She said putting the puzzle pieces together is how babies are made. She said it only makes babies sometimes, but that people like practicing making babies because it feels good."

"She's right about that."

Maria cocked her head the other way. "Do you want to practice with me?"

'_Do I __ever__.'_ Dom tamped down the impulse to tear off their clothes. "I think we should, uh, practice 'practicing' first."

"What do you mean?" Maria blinked those lush black eyelashes.

'_Here we go ...'_ He cleared his throat. "Well, I can sort of ... give you an example of how 'practicing' would feel, and you can decide if you like that or not."

The teenage boy in him prayed_, 'Ohhh, please oh please oh please oh please ...'_

"Okay."

'_Yessss!'_

Dom told his teenage self to shut the hell up before he ruined this.

He showed Maria his right hand and wiggled the fingers. "I'm going to use my hand to show you how it works, okay?"

She frowned a little in confusion. "How is that going to help?"

"Uh, well ... I really just have to show you."

"Okay."

'_Yessss!'_

'_Zip it, Casanova.'_

Dom arranged the blankets over their lower bodies because Maria would be less likely to feel overwhelmed if she were experiencing just one kind of sensory input: touch.

"First I'm going to take off your undies."

"Okay." Maria bent her knees and lifted her butt off the mattress so he could do that.

'_Yessss!'_

'_Shut it, you horny toad!'_

After removing the panties, Dom let his hand rest on the inside of her thigh. "Do you like my hand here?" Her teacher had said to ask permission at each step so Maria would feel in control.

"Mmmm," Maria replied. She had a dreamy smile on her face and stretched her arms over her head. "I like that."

Dom lay on his side facing her with his head propped up in his left hand. The right hand he let linger on her silky thigh, making slow circles with his fingertips.

Maria sighed happily.

'_So far so good.'_

'_Yessss!'_

'_Dear God in Heaven, are you going to do that the whole time?'_

'_Probably.'_

Dom sighed, not so happily as Maria had. If his sexuality was manifesting as an imaginary second self, he would really have to keep a close eye on it. It would not do to make it halfway through his plan and then lose control; he could scare Maria if he didn't take it slow and easy. For all intents and purposes she was a virgin again, and most female virgins were startled by the initial penetration. The teacher had said it was likely because for women the sex act happened_ inside_ the body instead of outside like it did for men. If he weren't careful, their 'first time' could feel like he was invading her instead of like she was receiving him.

Dom's blushing had kicked it up a notch when Mrs. Wilson suggested he "use your hand to mimic the sex act". Blushing aside, it was a good idea, and one Dom was becoming more and more enthusiastic about.

The little circles he was making went higher and higher up the inside of her thigh. "Maria?"

"Mmmm?" She had her eyes closed.

"Do you like that?"

"Mmm-hmm." She squeezed her thighs together briefly, unintentionally scooting his hand higher up. "Oh!" Her eyes popped open in surprise.

'_Oops, too soon I guess.'_

'_Dammit,'_ said his disappointed teenage libido.

"Sorry, honey, we can do this another time—" Dom started to pull his hand back.

Maria grabbed his wrist. He looked at her questioningly. "I liked that," she said with a beatific smile. "Do it again."

'_Yessss!'_

Maria kept her left hand wrapped around his wrist and ran the other over his hair and down his neck. "Mmmm," she said when he slipped his hand back into its previous spot. She tightened her fingers in his hair. She wriggled her hips a little and gasped at the friction, her eyes going wide again. "What was that?" she asked.

"That's ... uh ... that's part of why people like 'practicing' so much."

"Oooh, I like it too." She wriggled her hips again. "Mmmm."

Dom was breathing pretty hard but managing to keep everything still but his hand. That part he used as best he knew how, trying to repeat the motions Maria had liked ten years ago. Even during the five years of grieving before she disappeared, she had still wanted him regularly. Dom had been more than happy to oblige. Not just for his own pleasure, but because he could make her forget her heartbreak for a little while. And because he would take any closeness with Maria he could get. She had been so far away from him even when she was still around. Dom grieved for his children too, but he didn't have that extra bond that came from carrying them inside one's own body for the better part of a year. So he'd done what he could to ease her suffering, in the only way she would allow: physically.

She certainly wasn't suffering now. At first her movements had been uncoordinated and jerky, but like her teacher had said, her body soon remembered how. She held his wrist tighter and tighter, her breath coming faster with every movement of her hips. Then suddenly she stopped, looking unhappy.

Dom was breathing pretty fast himself. "What is it, sweetheart?"

"I don't know, it's—it's not—" She searched through her limited stash of words. "Not _close_ enough," she finally said.

"Oh. I think I know what you mean."

"You do?" She looked so hopeful.

"Tell me if you want me to stop, okay?"

"Okay."

Dom delicately eased a single finger inside, watching her expression closely. Her lashes fluttered in surprise, then lowered lazily.

"Yes, that's close enough," she said slowly.

With difficulty, Dom kept his hand still for a while so Maria could get used to the sensation. This was make-or-break time, when she decided if she wanted him inside her body or not.

"Kiss me," she sighed.

'_Yessss!'_

'_Shut up, this is supposed to be romantic!'_

'_Sorry. My bad.'_

Dom kissed her as tenderly as he could manage in his excited state. "How do you feel, honey?"

She smiled at him and stroked the side of his face. "I want more."

"More kisses, or more of this?" He wiggled his finger.

Maria gasped loudly and gripped his wrist so tightly it hurt. "That," she decided. "I definitely want more of that."

Dom gave her "more of that" until she arched off the bed with her mouth open in a silent cry. She had always been mute at the height of her pleasure; that was another bit of the original Maria.

Dom was very proud of himself.

Maria collapsed bonelessly onto their mattress, eyes closed. Dom withdrew his hand, trailing his fingers across her still-sensitive flesh. She jerked with an "Oh!" of surprise, then smiled languidly. "I like that, Dom. I like all of it."

Dom laughed a little. "Well, I'm glad you liked my example."

She opened her eyes, confused. "That wasn't 'practicing'?"

"That was just a little bit of practicing. Like ... like one piece of a puzzle that has lots of pieces."

She looked intrigued. "Really? What are some of the other pieces?"

"Well, uh ... the biggest piece is the part that can actually make babies. I, um ..." Dom felt himself blushing again. "I use my 'boy parts' instead of my hand."

Her eyes went wide. "You can do that?" She seemed to have forgotten the 'opposite shapes' explanation for a moment.

Dom laughed in spite of his embarrassment. "Yes, that's what boy parts are for. Hands can do a lot of things, but boy parts mostly do this one thing." He wasn't about to explain what else the 'boy parts' did because he was pretty sure she'd be grossed out. She'd never let him in if she knew it was a multipurpose instrument_._

'_I wash it between uses, I promise!'_

'_You're not helping.'_

'_Sorry.'_

"Can you show me?" she asked.

'_Yessss!'_

"I think maybe you should rest first. 'Practicing' takes a lot of energy."

"Okay."

'_Dammit. I hate you "sensible" old people.'_

They lay next to each other, resting in a comfortable silence. This first step in deep intimacy made Dom feel more at ease with her and her condition than ever. He'd underestimated how much he had needed her to want him again, how much he had needed to please her. He truly felt like a husband again, not just a best friend who happened to be the opposite gender. And she wasn't freaked out by the physical part.

Maria snuggled up closer to him. After a few seconds she pulled away and looked down toward their legs.

"What is it?"

"Your boy parts are still—" She didn't have a word for it.

Dom couldn't find an appropriate one either. "Still ... up? Yeah, they're still up."

"Why?"

"Uh ... well ... because I haven't used them yet."

"Oh, I see. Like this?" She slipped her hand into his boxers and grabbed him before he could stop her.

"Oh, Holy God," he choked.

Maria looked at him, not taking her hand away. "Are you okay?"

Dom couldn't form words. "Uh ... huh," he managed.

She cocked her head in that curious way. "Do you like the same things as I do?"

Dom breathed shakily through his nose for a few seconds before he could answer. Was he supposed to remove her hand? The schoolteacher hadn't foreseen this eventuality, so he had no advice to go on except, "Let her do whatever she wants."

His teenage self begged, _'Oh, pretty please let her do whatever she wants.'_

Maria shifted her grip while waiting for his answer. Dom sucked in his breath.

'_I don't really think we've got a choice at this point.'_

"I'd probably like anything you do," he said to her. "I just ..." He decided to be honest. "I just want you to touch me."

Maria gave him one of those smiles that was a flicker of her old mischievous side. "Anything?"

Alarmed, he amended, "Nothing that hurts!"

"I'll be gentle," she said with a startlingly mature tone. "I promise." She used her other hand to ease his boxers down over his hips. Dom trembled like a leaf and gripped handfuls of the blankets. He couldn't say a word and even his teenage self was quiet.

It appeared Maria remembered quite a few things about marital relations, specifically the ones about how to make her husband squirm using only her hands. She didn't seem turned off by the look of his 'boy parts' or how they reacted to her touch, either. A very good sign.

After she'd finished her sweetly innocent re-possession of him, they lay spent in each other's arms.

Dom was quite a bit sweatier than Maria, but she didn't seem to mind. In fact, she snuggled up closer to him than ever. Dom hugged her to him, resting his cheek on the top of her head.

"Maria?" he said.

"Yes?"

Dom tried to keep emotion from overwhelming him before he could say what he wanted to say: "I missed you when you were gone."

"You did?" She pulled back just enough to look at his face.

"I did." He brushed a tiny strand of fine hair back from her forehead. "I missed you every day. And not because of the 'practicing'."

"Why did you miss me then?"

How could he put it in words? "Because ... because you're Maria."

He would remember the loving smile on her face for the rest of his life.

"I missed you when I was gone, too. Because you're Dom."

**# # #**

**There are probably a few things to fix in this chapter, but it was so cute and sexy I just had to post it. I'll fix the typos later. :D  
**


	78. E-Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 1730 Dom

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base: 1730 hours]

Due to the anticipated Lambent incursion, Delta had been on rotating 9 hour shifts since the _Emerald Spar_ burned down. Delta-One (Dom, Marcus, Baird and Cole) were preparing their weapons for the swing-shift rotation that started at 1800. Delta-Two (Carmine, Jace and two Gears filling in for Sam and Bernie) were at the end of their shift too, trickling into the armory to clean and secure their weapons. DENIS and Rookie were present as well, both having been okay'd by Hoffman. Sharon was adult-sitting Maria while Dom was at work.

It was Carmine who accidentally ratted Dom out.

Marcus had been cleaning his Lancer on autopilot, wearing that ultra-serious _Thinking about Anya_ look, so he hadn't yet noticed that Dom was on Cloud Nine today.

Carmine, however, had state-of-the-art Nookie Radar. He came in, took one look at Dom and exclaimed, "Santiago! You got lucky, huh? Congrats, man."

No one else seemed to think it was as awesome as the oversexed Carmine did. They all froze in mid-motion and stared at Dom.

Marcus turned his head toward Dom in extreme slow-mo. "You. Did. _What?"_ he asked very, very quietly.

Baird wrinkled his nose. "You had sex with a mentally disabled person? Gross, Dom."

Cole frowned like he couldn't decide whether he was okay with it or not.

Jace mostly looked pissed that yet another person in Delta had gotten action before he did.

Even the robot and the dog seemed to be giving him disapproving looks.

No one's opinion really mattered except Marcus's. Dom turned toward Marcus like a hiker who has unintentionally come between a mother bear and her cub. He slowly held his hands up. "Look, Marcus. I can explain."

Marcus finished slapping the magazine into his Lancer and picked up the rifle very deliberately. "Talk fast, Dom."

"Oooh, this ought to be interesting," Baird said.

"Come on, man." Cole tugged on Baird's elbow. "This sounds like a family matter."

Dom was thinking furiously, trying to come up with a way to justify the situation. He sensed that "She started it" would not go over well with Marcus.

Baird said, "Let's stay. You know how I love watching Santiago get his ass kicked."

Marcus adjusted his grip on the Lancer. His forefinger ended up unsettlingly close to the power button for the chainsaw. "I'm waiting," he said, far too calmly.

Dom swallowed. "Uh ... so, Mrs. Wilson said ... um ..."

DENIS clicked a few times. It sounded an awful lot like "Tsk-tsk." The robot didn't have a head to shake, but it was implied.

"Wonder what Marcus will make out of his entrails," Baird said, smirking. "Jace, you wanna lay slips on bootlaces or violin strings?"

"Her teacher could explain it better." Dom's voice was shaking a little. The others might think this was funny, but Dom knew he was in real physical danger.

"I want to hear it from you," Marcus insisted.

Dom fought the urge to ask Cole, "Tell my wife I loved her."

"Come in, Delta Squad," Mathieson's voice said in their tac/coms. "There's a Leviathan hanging around Pelruan. Could be nothing, could be trouble."

Marcus didn't take his eyes off Dom. "Copy that, Control."

"Hey, they're using the name I suggested!" Baird sounded pleased.

"Aw, man, I was gonna get some shut-eye," Jace said. He and Carmine put their weapons back on.

The two replacement Gears opened the door to the armory. "You guys hear that?"

"Yeah," Marcus said. "We're suiting up now."

"Okay, Fenix. We're all ready to go. Meet you at the rally point?"

"Roger." As soon as the two shut the door, Marcus stared at Dom with his near-white eyes. "This isn't over, Dom."

"Yes sir," Dom replied automatically. _'Please, Savior,' _he prayed. _'Let it be painless.'_

**# # #**

**You didn't think Marcus was going to be understanding, did you? :D Not with his hang-ups!  
**

**Also, I figure with the names of two saints, Dom is probably the Seran equivalent of Catholic.**


	79. E-Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 2000 Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base, 2000 hours]

Hoffman was as close to shitting himself as he'd ever been. Not because of the Leviathans circling Vectes like highly flammable sharks or the hundreds of Polyps burning merrily in the flame-filled trench, but because he was two seconds away from witnessing Marcus Fenix commit a capital offense. Again.

"You can't go to Pelruan," he told the sergeant. "You are assigned to Vectes Naval Base. You are assigned to _Delta_ Squad."

Side-lit by the flaming trench, Marcus looked like the Grim Reaper himself, come to collect Hoffman's soul. The firelight threw his scar into sharp relief and the one eye that wasn't in shadow reflected flickering red and orange light.

"She needs me." He had that same half-insane, half-shocked look on his face as when he had deserted to try saving his father.

"She _doesn't_. She's a goddamned frontline Gear. Lieutenant Stroud in Control might have needed your help, but Lieutenant Stroud in charge of the Pelruan Garrison is going to rain hell on that Leviathan with or without you."

'_Please God, let it be without you. None of us can go through that again.'_

"They've got Sorotki and Mitchell overhead in KR Two-Three-Nine," Hoffman continued, "Rossi and Echo Squad, Mataki, Byrne, Brand, and veterans from the frigging _Duke of Tollen's_ regiment. Not to mention Yanik's men."

Marcus's eyes narrowed as if Hoffman were telling him a fib. "Yanik? The one Baird gets along with?" The list of _People Baird gets along with_ was pretty short, so statistically there could be only one Yanik who fit that criteria, and that one's affectionate nickname was "The Disemboweler". Even the Locust would think twice about frakking with the Gorasni militia.

"That's right. Yanik and eight of his militiamen." Hoffman decided not to mention the Stranded pirates who were lending a hand so they could evacuate their own people from Vectes.

'_Please,' _Hoffman thought at him, _'Please don't do this again. It won't be a life sentence this time. It'll be the firing squad.'_ If Marcus were executed, that would be the end of Delta's loyalty to him. And Anya's too. They were the best of the best, the many-headed Hydra guarding the last remnant of humanity, and Hoffman's right arm. The COG needed them more than they knew. But if Marcus Fenix deserted during wartime, _again_, and wasn't given the mandatory death sentence, _again_, every Gear would take it as permission to do as they saw fit. The entire military structure would crumble.

He doubted Marcus understood how key he was to the proper functioning of the army. All Marcus was thinking about right now was his beloved Anya. Hoffman knew what was plaguing the sergeant's mind because he was picturing the same bone-chilling image of Bernie: alone in the dark, no armor and only a rusty old pistol with two shots left, eyes widening at the advancing wave of enemies intent on tearing her limb from limb.

'_I played the duty card before and it didn't work ... maybe it's time for something closer to home.'_ Hoffman could not let this happen, not again. So he launched the last nuke in his arsenal.

"My woman is there too, remember?"

At Hoffman's statement Marcus's eyes refocused.

"You think I don't want to run to her? I do. More than anything."

Marcus's eyelids flickered at the unusual confession from Hardass Hoffman.

"But I'm staying here, and you know why?"

God help him, Marcus actually looked curious.

"Because if I abandon my post to go flying over there and save her, she won't be grateful. She'll be frakking_ pissed._"

Marcus blinked.

'_That's right, son, listen to what I'm saying. Hear me.'_

"She will figure—correctly—that I don't think she can handle herself, and she will _never_ let me forget it. I have no desire to hear 'Remember the time you treated me like a damsel in distress?' for the rest of my natural life, so I'm going to stay out of it and let her do her thing."

The sergeant frowned like he was wavering.

"If you want Anya to know that you trust her ability as a soldier, you will hold the line. Here."

For the first time since they'd heard of the Polyp attack on Pelruan just before New Jacinto got its own surprise visitor, Marcus's gaze lit on his squad. Dom. Baird. Cole. Carmine. All lined up on the jetty waiting for the Leviathan to return and looking as badass as any ten regiments put together.

'_That's right. See them. See your men. They are the ones who need you, not Anya.'_

The same thought seemed to occur to Marcus, because Hoffman saw the single-minded haze lifting off the sergeant's features.

Marcus turned back to Hoffman and stared at him with that flaming eye, not speaking for a full minute. Then he began to threaten "If she doesn't—"

"She'll make it," Hoffman interrupted. "She's got more of Helena in her than she realizes." Anya's mother had been a legend in her own lifetime, and it was a freak accident that finally took her out, not the enemy.

Hoffman paused just the right amount of time before driving the final nail into the coffin of Marcus's rebellion. "I don't have any daughters of my own, you know."

Fenixes were so unused to hearing a confession of strong attachment that it had more impact on them than regular human beings. Hoffman had learned that from working with Adam Fenix, and he wasn't above using the brutal truth to keep Adam's son from self-destructing.

Implying he loved Anya like a daughter had the desired effect on Marcus. He searched Hoffman's face for any deceptions or half-truths, and finding none Marcus simply nodded once and turned on his heel, already speaking to Mathieson on his tac/com about the upcoming battle. The battle _here_.

Hoffman's insides stopped trying to be on his outsides, and the only reason he didn't pump a fist in the air was because he knew how many people were watching their conversation. He allowed himself one covert sigh of relief, shoved away another disturbing image of a helpless Bernie, and went back to his office to get the command keys for the Hammer.

There was only one truth he hadn't voiced, the one he withheld because he knew Marcus wouldn't believe it: Hoffman cared just as much for Marcus as he did for Anya.

**# # #**


	80. E-Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 2440 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base: 2440 hours]

Baird wasn't the touchy-feely type, but he did feel kind of bad about blowing up New Jacinto.

Not that he'd planned to make the cliff collapse, that's just what happens when you drop the Hammer on a one-hundred-ton bomb swimming too close to shore. It had been the lesser of two evils: use the harpoon Marcus had shot down its throat from the _Falconer _to pull it off course at the last minute, or let it swim right into the harbor and blow up their aircraft carriers and fuel reserves. If they lost those, there would be no way to evacuate 50,000-plus people from Vectes. Which might become necessary if these three Leviathans were just the vanguard for a full-scale invasion.

No civvies had died because they were all in or around the underground emergency bunkers at the rear of the base. One of the perks of reclaiming "Toxin Town" was that the former bio-weapon development base was built with catastrophes in mind. Hopefully no Gears had been in the evacuated section when the Leviathan blew. If there turned out to be no casualties, Baird figured he deserved a frigging medal or something. He'd been bait for a wave of Polyps, gotten his eyebrows singed off when the Imulsion trench was lit just moments after he climbed out, had bits of glass stuck in his face from the explosion blowing out the window he was standing at, and he hit his head on the floor pretty hard. No concussion, but he was going to feel like hell for a few days anyway. And at least he'd remembered to put his goggles on before looking out the window, so he didn't lose an eye.

There had been another wave of Polyps when the Leviathan's corpse washed up in the harbor, but nothing Delta couldn't handle. Okay, maybe some other squads helped too. And the Gorasni. And even a few Stranded who weren't complete bastards.

After powering down the Hammer and handing the command keys back to Hoffman, Baird picked the slivers of glass out of his face as he walked toward the rear of the base, following DENIS's green dot on the tracker Sharon had made for him. What she didn't know was that Baird had hacked her command strip so he could track her too. A third green dot represented Cole's modified chronometer. All three were bunched together at the rear of the base in the northeast quadrant. Or at least that's what he guessed. These trackers had to be bracelet-size, so the screen just showed dots and the distances to them from the user's location. But that's all you needed, really. A direction to go.

There was a quiet series of blips in his tac/com, and then Cole's voice asking, "Baird, you there?" It was their private channel that cut through all other radio traffic. Delta Squad had its own frequency, but Baird had set up this one for just Cole and himself.

Baird halted in mid-step. "Yeah, Cole? What is it?" Their heavily-scrambled channel was for emergencies only, like being pinned down by enemy fire with a jammed Lancer. Or things you didn't want the brass to know about.

"Where you at?"

"Just coming into the northeast quadrant, heading your way. Did you find Sharon?"

"Yeah. Put a move on, we need you. And, uh ..." Cole was speaking in his deliberately calm, _Everything's going to be fine as long as we don't freak out_ voice.

Baird felt like he'd swallowed a bunch of ice cubes. "And what?"

"You got a med kit?"

"A small one. Why? Is Sharon okay?"

There was an agonizingly long pause on the other end of the line.

"Not exactly. She's ... you'll have to see for yourself. Just hurry, man."

Baird would never have guessed he could run that fast in full rig.

Gear boots were not made for sprinting; they were for deflecting bullets and keeping sharp debris from slicing the soles of your feet, and they weighed ten pounds each. Tonight they might have been made of paper, for all they were slowing him down.

Baird ran flat-out down the thoroughfare, viciously suppressing flashbacks from his Port Farrall nightmares. When he turned onto the side street with the three green dots, he saw her kneeling on the ground, hunched over with her bloody forearms wrapped around her torso. That knocked the wind out of him more than any bad dream ever had. He almost didn't have enough breath left to get to them.

Cole was kneeling alongside her with his broad hand patting her back. He looked up at Baird's approaching footsteps, but Sharon didn't. "She sliced her arms pretty good," he said.

Baird skidded to a sudden stop in front of them, almost losing his balance. "Where?" He dropped to his knees and scrabbled for the small med kit attached to his combat belt.

"Her forearms. She cut them on the ... I'm so sorry, man, I was taking care of the dog."

Baird tugged gently on Sharon's elbow and pushed back her shoulder to get her to straighten up. Her shirt was streaked with blood, but not from any wounds on her torso. It was from the deep cuts on her arms, but those were already starting to clot. He closed his eyes for a moment to thank Dom's god that she didn't have a mortal wound.

He tipped her chin up, but her eyes were glazed like she'd taken a blow to the head. Tracks of tears had dried on her cheeks.

Baird turned her arms over to see the gashes on both sides. They were long and ragged, but didn't go deeper than the epidermis. That was good. And although there were some loose flaps of skin, there was no de-gloving injury to either hand, which could have crippled her for life. For Sharon (and Baird too), losing fine motor control in her hands would be worse than amputating her legs.

Speaking of her hands, one was clenched into a very tight fist. Sharon looked dazed, but when he tried to pry those fingers open, she jerked her hand back and held it protectively to her chest. She wrapped her other hand around it, shuddering and staring at him like he was a stranger. But she wasn't moving away and her arms were still, so he started sealing the gashes with butterfly closures.

"What the hell happened to her?" Baird demanded.

"I'm sorry, man, I ... I was checking on the civvies, and looking for Sharon like you asked. I heard her a couple streets over yelling for Connor to come back." Cole rubbed a hand over his face. "Then I heard barking, a couple of those splattering noises Polyps make when they explode, and Sharon started screaming. When I got here Connor was already dead, and the dog ..."

Cole gestured, and Baird finally noticed something besides Sharon and Cole. Connor and Ding-Dong lay several feet away. Although he had to take Cole's word for it about Connor because the right side of the man's face and skull were gone. There were chunks of Polyps scattered around like shrapnel.

Ding-Dong was one of the few dogs Baird could recognize on sight because he had a white rear paw, unusual for a bloodhound. The dog had third-degree burns over most of his body, but the cause of death was obviously the bullet hole in his skull. With half his skin gone the dog would have been in sheer agony, and easy prey for bacteria and viruses even if he didn't die of shock. Either way the lead slug had saved Ding-Dong from a long, painful death.

Baird spared a look for Cole and was shocked to see his friend shedding a few tears. "He was trying to get up, man," Cole sniffled, wiping his cheeks with the back of his grimy hand. "He saw Sharon and he started _wagging his frigging tail_, like he thought she could save him or something." He stared at the dog like he was a fallen Gear. "Sharon was trying to put him out of his misery, but she just couldn't pull the trigger." Cole put his hand on Sharon's back again and looked down at her, the corners of his mouth quivering when he compressed his lips. "So I took the gun from her, and while I was ... while I was taking care of the dog, she tore open the robot. That's how she cut herself."

'_The robot? Oh, God no ...' _ He looked around frantically. About eight yards away Baird spotted a twisted pile of still-smoking metal. It was so badly damaged that he couldn't tell who it had been.

Cole pointed to Sharon's clenched fist. "She pulled something out of it and started walking back toward me while she looked at it, but then she just sort of ... stopped. Right here."

Baird stared at Sharon's hand. He didn't want to know. But he _had_ to.

He tried to pry her fist open again, but she held on so tightly he couldn't have accomplished it without breaking her fingers. Instead he took her face in both hands. "Sharon? Sharon, look at me." Her eyelids flickered. "Sharon, it's Damon. I need you to look at me."

Sharon blinked like someone waking up from a deep sleep. When her eyes focused on his face, her chin quivered for a moment and then she burst into tears.

His gut went cold again. Sharon hardly ever cried unless there was a death in the family.

"I was too late," she said. "He must have ... he must have tried to draw the Polyps away from Connor and Ding-Dong. B-but he's not a combat robot. He didn't have any weapons. He ... he ... " Her face was getting more haggard by the second. "He must have been so scared," she whispered.

Baird sucked in his breath, unwilling to believe unless he heard it from her own lips. "Who is it, Sharon?"

"N-not DENIS," she stuttered. She opened her hand and showed him a half-melted CPU. "It's J –J – it's JEEB." Sharon began to sob so forcefully that she almost dropped the chip. Baird folded her fingers back around JEEB's ruined brain. There would be no repairing him. It would be like trying to revive Ding-Dong with skin grafts. JEEB was gone.

Baird closed his hand around hers and hung his head, half relieved and half depressed. He was so, so glad it hadn't been DENIS, but JEEB had been a sweet little guy, too. And Sharon's close companion for over ten years.

"Not – again," she hiccupped between sobs. "This – can't be – happening. Not again."

'_Oh shit. This isn't just about JEEB.'_ His eyes went to Cole, who looked like he'd put two and two together as well. _'She transferred her mothering instinct to the robots.'_

She was crying for Grace too. Dom said the grief could resurface any time, any place, just as bad as the day it had happened. Sharon was a mother who had just lost her child all over again.

They should really take her to the med center for some antibiotics and painkillers, but Sharon was doing that wretched sobbing which eventually left you breathless because you couldn't stop long enough to draw air. You could even pass out from the lack of oxygen. Baird had found out how bad it could get during the first few weeks after Sharon left him. Once. Maybe twice. Definitely no more than three times.

Baird decided he could put aside their _he-said, she-said_ standoff for the moment. He handed Cole the med kit and took the big man's place at her back. Baird wrapped his arms around her from behind while Cole knelt in front and finished closing up her wounds. When the job was done, Baird let Cole take her while he removed his weapons and upper-body armor so he wouldn't be crushing her against metal.

"Take that stuff for me?" Baird asked Cole as he removed the gauntlets. He pointed to his gear and Sharon's torn-off command strip. "And come back for the three of them?" He nodded to the corpses of Connor, Ding-Dong and JEEB.

"No problem," Cole answered while he patted Sharon's back. "Where will you be?"

"I've got sutures and disinfectant at the shop."

"You're not taking her to her room?"

"Shop's a lot closer and it'll comfort her. Plus DENIS can go snitch some antibiotics from the med center —wait, where _is_ DENIS, anyway?" The third green dot hadn't been JEEB because Baird had never put a tracker on that robot.

Cole pointed at a nearby roof. "Up there, hiding behind that chimney. I think he's afraid he'll get blown up like JEEB."

When Baird looked up he saw DENIS peeking out from behind a metal smokestack. All of his extendable parts were withdrawn so he just looked like a floating dodecahedron. Was it Baird's imagination, or was DENIS wobbling a little?

"Come on, buddy," he called.

DENIS inched back behind the smokestack.

"Come on down, it's all clear."

The robot didn't budge. Baird couldn't see him behind the metal pipe, but one optical stalk crept around its curve to peek at them.

"Seriously, DENIS, there are no more Polyps."

The optic was yanked back.

"DENIS, Sharon needs your help."

After a long moment DENIS came out and floated slowly to the edge of the roof.

"See? She's crying, and she's hurt. She needs you to come with us. And I promise we'll fit you with some weapons, okay?"

The little robot hesitated a second, then drifted over the rain gutter and down to human level.

"Good job, buddy. Now, I need you to go to the med center and snitch some antibiotics and painkillers. We could get them legitimately if we go there, but Sharon wouldn't want to cry in public, okay?"

"I'll walk you there, DENIS," Cole offered. "That way you'll see the Polyps are all gone."

After a beat, DENIS drifted up to hover a couple feet over Cole's head. Apparently he was willing to follow Cole, but didn't trust that there weren't a few extra Glowies hiding somewhere.

Sharon's heartbroken bawling hadn't lessened one bit. Hearing a woman or child cry like this struck a primal chord in a man, even when there was bad blood between them. It was pure instinct and even Baird wasn't immune. Cole didn't seem to be either because he wavered in place.

"I've got her," Baird said as he scooped Sharon up, her legs hanging over his left arm and his right holding her against his chest. "Make sure DENIS gets those drugs. And a syringe."

Cole's brow was still wrinkled and he was chewing his lower lip. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Grab the medicine and bring our gear to the shop, okay?" Baird shifted Sharon against his shoulder so her head wouldn't bob around if she passed out.

"Okay."

As he carried Sharon home, he didn't even try to suppress the memories of the other times he'd comforted Sharon as she mourned. He was half-convinced if he looked down at her he'd see a ten-year-old girl in pigtails weeping for her favorite aunt.

It was a ten minute walk from the bunkers to their shop, and the whole way Sharon's keening made his male brain stem incessantly demand he do something to fix it. It clamored for an enemy to fight, a target it could destroy to make the female stop hurting.

'_I'm trying, God damn it! Shut up!'_

He had to bend awkwardly to use the keypad and key to unlock the shop without putting her down, but he managed. Inside he flipped on the overhead lights with his elbow. Sharon flinched from the sudden brightness. _'Oops. Bad idea.'_ He flipped them off again and inched through the gloom to the couch. He set her down on it and turned on a swivel-mounted magnifying lamp, angling it away so the light that reached the couch was soft back splash.

When he went back to her, Sharon was curled up in a fetal position, clutching JEEB to her chest and making awful _Nuh, nuh, nuh_ noises between hiccupping breaths. She didn't stop even when he tucked her against his side, and she didn't seem like she'd be slowing down anytime soon. The muscles in his back and arms jumped every time she made that horrible _Nuh_ sound.

Baird sighed. '_Well, I guess I can stand a little make-believe if it calms her down.'_

He hauled her into his lap and rested her head on his shoulder, laying his cheek against her forehead. He hugged her with one arm and used the other hand to rub circles on her back.

"It'll be okay," he said. "It's okay ..." —Baird hesitated a moment, then decided he might as well— "... babe."

He kept rubbing her back and murmuring soothing platitudes in a quiet voice. Sharon's weeping gradually subsided to _Mnn, mnn, mnn_ and breathing hard through her nose. It was working.

By the time DENIS and Cole came back, she was down to just hiccupping and sniffling, although she hadn't let go of JEEB or opened her eyes yet.

"She seems better," Cole said, looking like his usual optimistic self again.

"Yeah, I've done this before. Similar situations," Baird replied.

Cole nodded like that didn't surprise him, then lifted a bag. "DENIS got the medical stuff. I'm gonna go back and take care of ... you know. And make a report to Hoffman."

"Thanks, man. Just put it down there." He indicated the workbench with a tilt of his head.

"You got it. Call me on our channel if you need anything."

"Will do."

"All right." Cole shut the door quietly as he left.

DENIS hovered in front of them, moving slightly side to side like a person shuffling their feet. He had his optics and a pair of arms out now.

"Sharon," Baird said, trying to draw her out, "do you want to talk to DENIS for a bit?"

"Nnn-nnn," she replied, shaking her head and rubbing her wet cheek against his shirt.

DENIS drifted closer to them and extended two of his tool arms. He pried gently at her fist. Sharon opened her eyes and let him peel her fingers away from JEEB's melted brain. Her chin quivered violently as she looked at it.

The teal robot picked it up with a clamp. Sharon's eyes never left the chip as DENIS peered at it, turning it this way and that to survey the damage. Then he looked at Sharon.

"I'm s-sorry, DENIS. I was too l-late. I couldn't s-s-save your brother." Her honey-colored eyes pleaded for forgiveness. Baird tightened his arms around her.

DENIS swung open one of his panels and put JEEB's chip inside himself, then closed it with a tiny _click_. He settled down at Sharon's feet and made that whirring noise of JEEB's that sounded like a purring cat.

Sharon's next hiccup/sob sounded relieved. Baird reached over his shoulder and grabbed a clean rag from the cubbyholes behind the couch. She took it gratefully and wiped her eyes and dripping nose. Her eyelids were so swollen it looked like she'd been punched and her skin was mottled red and white. Sharon had always been the first one to admit she didn't "cry pretty", and apparently that hadn't changed.

She seemed better, but Baird knew he had to play "Damon" for a little while longer. At least until she fell asleep.

"Here," he said quietly, bringing the bag with the medicine closer. He filled the syringe with a small dose of painkillers. Sharon let him take her arm, and he injected the liquid with the same care he used for soldering motherboards. Then he held her close until her eyes started drooping sleepily.

Baird set her back gently and got his suture kit. He made sure to use the topical anesthetic to minimize the pain from the needle.

It took a long time, but he was finally satisfied with the stitches he'd made. She might not even have noticeable scars a few months from now. At the moment, the skin was bruised along the wounds and the stitches made her arms look like they were decorated with tattoos of black caterpillars. He wrapped thin gauze around her forearms and secured them with tiny clips. Then he gave her an appropriate dose of antibiotics.

"See? All better." He brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers, like she used to do to him.

She'd stopped hiccupping a few minutes ago. "Mmm," was her non-committal reply.

"Come on, Sharon. Off to bed."

She frowned woozily at him.

"Not like that. Just sleep."

"'Kay." She slung her arms around his neck and let him pick her up again, feet dangling like a kid. He took her up the two short flights of stairs to the old boss's office. Baird had turned the far third of it into a bedroom. He wove his way through the old filing cabinets and disassembled pieces of machinery to the bed, flipping on a reading lamp nearby.

Like any soldier, he'd made his bed so well you could bounce a quarter off it, so he had to put her down to pull the covers loose. Sharon leaned on his back while he loosened the dingy-but-clean sheet and blanket and then knelt to take her shoes off.

"Hop in." He held the covers up and guided her under them, then tucked the covers in around her. When he turned to go downstairs and sleep on the couch, she caught his wrist.

"Don't go." Painkillers and grief were slurring her words. "I don' wanna be by m'self."

"I'll call DENIS to keep you company." Sleeping in the same bed with her could be fraught with all kinds of complications. He'd taken to wearing his lower-body armor all the time (particularly because of the codpiece) to avoid a repeat of what happened her first day on the island. It was severely uncomfortable when certain memories came back, but at least no one could to tell how she was affecting him. Hell if he was going to take it off and get in bed with her.

"DENIS isss cold," she mumbled.

Baird wavered. It wasn't like she was particularly attractive right now, all snotty-nosed and looking like she'd been hit by a truck. And he wasn't feeling particularly lusty either.

"Pr'tty please with shhh-ugar on top?" She blinked slowly, trying to focus. It looked like she was fighting sleep. Her fingers inch-wormed over to the edge of the bed, reaching out for his hand where it dangled near the mattress.

He let her take his fingers, looking down at their linked hands for a long minute.

'_What the hell,'_ he decided. _'I've slept in my armor for years.'_

"Okay. Skootch over."

Sharon wriggled to the other side of the bed and Baird lay down on top of the covers. It was warm enough he didn't need the blanket. Despite that, he shivered when Sharon pressed herself against his side. It was an awkward arrangement until he put his arm under her head. She snuggled into the curve of his waist and laid a hand on his chest. Just like Sharon's "ghost" had done almost every night for the last fifteen years.

Baird expected to lie awake churning with conflicting emotions, mostly angry ones, but apparently his "Damon" façade was good enough to fool even himself. He fell asleep only minutes after Sharon.

When Cole returned with Baird's gear and the remains of JEEB, the shop was unlocked. He peeked in and didn't see them. Baird might have taken Sharon back to her place, but he never would have forgotten to lock up first.

His eyes went to the dark windows of Baird's office/bedroom. He looked at DENIS, who sat on the workbench, sorting a jar of mismatched bolts. The little robot clicked twice and swung an optic at the upper story, then went back to his self-appointed chore.

'_I wonder...' _Cole crept up the wooden stairs as quietly as a three-hundred-pound man can manage, only making the steps creak twice. The door had a large glass window from the waist up, so Cole stayed low and peeked over the sill like he was checking for snipers.

There they were just like he'd hoped, all snuggled up in bed. Even though Baird was on top of the covers and still wearing some of his armor, it was cute as hell. Sharon's messy brown head was pillowed on his arm, and her hand on his chest had one of his own on top of it. His head was turned toward her, and from what Cole could tell his face was very close to her hair. It looked suspiciously like he'd fallen asleep smelling it.

Cole reigned himself in until he was back on the ground floor, and then he did the Cole Train's Epic Touchdown Dance, minus the loud _Woo!_

'_Bernie is going to__ freak__ when I tell her about this!'_ The prospect of gossiping with Bernie about Baird's love life made the deaths he'd witnessed today just a little more bearable.

**# # #**

**FYI, I don't recommend Googling images of de-gloving injuries unless you have a strong stomach.  
**


	81. E-Day & 15 years 2 weeks:0001 Dom&Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base: 0001 hours]

Marcus patted the side of his leg as he started off down the street. "Come on, Rookie. We've got an appointment to keep."

The last civvies, including the nomads and Maria, had been billeted in the gymnasiums and other common areas until the Gears finished going house to house for stray Polyps in the morning. The soldiers had been getting tired and complacent until Connor and Ding-Dong were ambushed and killed. Hoffman ordered a halt until daylight. The bloodhound and his handler were a big loss, and JEEB had been destroyed as well; that one was going to be hard to explain to Maria. Marcus wasn't entirely sure she understood the concept of death.

She probably understood the concept of sex after what Dom had done to her. Marcus found himself balling his fists. _'Was she scared? Did she cry? Does she even understand what happened? God, she could be __pregnant__!' _At the thought of poor brain-damaged Maria going through the agony of childbirth Marcus clenched his jaw so hard his teeth squeaked.

Marcus felt even more protective of Maria than Anya, if such a thing were possible. He still remembered her as a little girl sitting in the Flores family's front yard, braiding the hair on the Princess Polly Perfect doll that she carried everywhere. And he'd met her the year his mother died, which only amplified his instinct to defend her from any threats, including horny jackasses who couldn't keep it in their pants.

Which was why Marcus was bringing the dog to this midnight "meeting" with Dom. Rookie could give them a heads-up if violence were about to erupt, the odds of which were increasing the more Marcus thought about the situation.

Marcus and Rookie were headed to a disused cold storage vault, the meeting place Dom had suggested. It was out of the way, lockable and had thick soundproof walls, perfect for a loud argument about personal matters. It also had a convenient drain in the floor.

Per their whispered conversation in the armory two hours ago, Marcus came unarmed and unarmored. He figured Rookie didn't count as a weapon because the bloodhounds weren't trained to attack on command.

The door to the cold storage room was open and the light was on. When Marcus entered the first thing he saw was Dom's commando knife stuck point-down in the huge butcher block that dominated the concrete room. Then he heard the door thump shut behind him. He turned and saw Dom throw the bolt, then lean back against the door with crossed arms and a belligerent expression. His sleeves were rolled up and Marcus couldn't help seeing the tattoo of Maria's name on Dom's bicep.

"You owe me an apology," Dom said.

This was not what Marcus had expected. "I owe _you_ an apology?"

"That's right."

Marcus crossed his arms too. "How do you figure?"

"I _figure_ earlier today you accused me of molesting a handicapped woman. I _figure_ I have never been so insulted in my entire life.I _figure_ you did it in front of our co-workers. In front of our _friends_." Dom looked truly angry, an expression that was completely at odds with the smile lines he'd acquired from a lifetime of being good-natured. It had the same sense of wrongness as an inside-out pocket.

Marcus glared. "Isn't that what you did?" In his chest there was a flare of anger that felt like severe heartburn.

"_Hell_ no!" Dom uncrossed his arms and jabbed a finger at Marcus. "I didn't do anything she wasn't ready for! You know her teacher, Mrs. Wilson?" Marcus nodded, and Dom nodded too, a good deal more self-righteously. "She's no kindergarten teacher, Marcus, or at least she wasn't during the Pendulum Wars. Before she retired, she was the Senior Professor of Developmental Psychology at LaCroix University."

Marcus felt his eyebrows push his bandana up his forehead. Dom nodded some more. "That's right, Marcus. If you'd gone to college instead of joining the army, you'd have taken courses from her. _That's_ who I consulted about Maria's 'readiness for intimacy'."

Dom started pacing circles around the butcher's block. Marcus kept a close eye on Dom's knife hand as he gestured wildly. "I did everything right. I waited until it was her idea, I let her lead, I asked permission for everything, and I didn't push for more. Hell, Marcus, I never even _kiss_ her unless I'm one hundred percent sure she wants me to!"

Dom stopped on the opposite side of the butchering table and stabbed another finger at Marcus. "And _you!_ You're supposed to be my best friend! You're my frakking _brother_, Marcus! How could you even _think_ that I'd abuse Maria?" Hurt started warring for dominance on Dom's face. "That woman has been the center of my universe since I was eleven years old. I've searched for her for _ten frakking years_, and I thought about her every waking moment. I didn't do all that just so I could get my jollies one more time. I did it because I live and breathe for Maria Flores Santiago, and I'd cut off my own frigging arm before I raised a hand to her."

Marcus started to speak and Dom cut him off before he got out more than a syllable. "And before you ask, I didn't seduce her either. It was entirely her idea." Dom held up a hand to forestall Marcus's protest. "That's God's honest truth. Look, Marcus, I know how you feel about Maria, but the stork didn't bring our two kids." Marcus rolled his eyes. A spark of humor softened Dom's expression a little. "That's right, we made them in the usual way. That's what husbands and wives do. And no, there's no way Maria got pregnant this morning. I'm not giving you any details, but it wasn't that kind of sex." Dom stood back and crossed his arms, a lot calmer now. "Now, if you still think I sexually assaulted the person I love more than anything in existence," Dom gestured to the knife stuck in the table, "go ahead and use that however you see fit. Slice me up, geld me, cut off my fingers one at a time, whatever punishment you think I deserve, but know this, Marcus: you'd be wrong."

Dom leaned against the wall and waited while Marcus stared at the knife for a while. It was the knife he'd received to mark his graduation from commando training, presented to him by Bernie herself after he'd passed the final test in her survival course. It was ten inches long, and six and a half of those were a broad steel blade with wicked serrations along the spine. It was the symbol of a commando's stealth, cunning, speed, and ruthlessness. It was won with blood, sweat, and broken bones. They didn't give it to just anyone, and they certainly didn't give it to sixteen-year-old boys. Dom had stuck with the training even when the utter brutality of it had made men four, six, even ten years older than him go home in tears. Dom told Marcus after the ceremony that he'd wanted to quit, almost _had_ quit so many times, but he didn't want Maria to see him fail. He would have excelled at any post, but he'd chosen the most elite combat role the military had to offer. Why? To impress his wife, of course.

Nobody who felt that way about a woman would ever hurt her, even if she wouldn't realize she was being taken advantage of.

"You're right, Dom," Marcus finally said. "I'm sorry."

When he didn't hear anything from Dom, he looked over. Dom was still giving him the stink-eye. "What?" Marcus asked.

"That's not good enough, Marcus."

Marcus blinked a few times in surprise. "Excuse me?"

"Saying you're sorry doesn't tell me why you thought I'd do something like that in the first place." Dom saw Marcus's eyes cut to the door. "Oh, no you don't. You're not leaving without giving me an explanation. I deserve to know why the first thing that came to your mind was that I'd molested Maria. Or seduced. Coerced. Assaulted, abused, taken advantage of, whatever you want to call it. Tell me why, and if you bullshit me, Marcus, I swear to God ..." Dom looked away, shaking his head, lips tight. Marcus could tell from the tension around his eyes that Dom was dead serious: if he didn't get the truth, their relationship would never be the same again.

"I thought you might have taken advantage of her ..." Marcus started. Dom looked back at him, willing to believe but also willing to walk away. Dom wasn't going to let Marcus's doubts poison his marriage. Marcus had to explain himself or lose the only family he had left. "I thought you might have taken advantage of her because that's what I did to Anya."

Dom cocked his head and squinted like some joker at the sergeant's mess was trying to convince him Prescott is really a woman in drag. "You what?"

"The day the Embry Stars were given out. Anya had too much wine, I walked her to her mother's apartment, she started crying, and ... and I got her to sleep with me." He stared at the concrete floor. "I took advantage, and I kept doing it for seventeen years. I only just found the decency to let her go." Marcus didn't want to look up at Dom, but he made himself do it anyway. "I tricked Anya, so it didn't seem far-fetched that you'd do the same to Maria. I'm sorry I thought that. I ... I forgot about your character for a while."

Dom's expression was still a mixture of disbelief and _Is there a hidden camera somewhere?_ "Who kissed who first?"

"Uh, she kissed me."

"And who took off the first piece of clothing?"

"She did."

"And who suggested you stay the night?"

"Anya."

"What makes you think it wasn't her idea?"

"Well, I was there and I should have left but ..."

Dom burst out laughing.

Now it was Marcus's turn to feel insulted. "What?"

Dom held up a finger, supporting himself with the other hand braced on his knee while he gasped for air. "You ... you ..."

"Me, what? Come on, Dom."

Dom's attempt to speak turned into a series of snorts.

Marcus felt his face burning. "Fine. See if I tell you private stuff again." Something about this conversation was bringing out the immaturity in both of them.

"W-w-wait!" Dom gasped. "I didn't ... it's just ..." He straightened up and swallowed the last of his guffaws. "Listen. Marcus. Some women find you attractive." Marcus raised an eyebrow. "No, really, it's true." Dom's lips quivered with suppressed giggles. Marcus rolled his eyes again. Dom continued in a barely-controlled voice. "But even you can't seduce a woman by just standing there and looking good." He lost it on the last half of the sentence, the words rising up the octaves to a breathy squeak. Dom collapsed onto the butcher's block, far away from the knife, laughing into his folded arms and pounding one fist on the table.

"Hey ..." Marcus began to set him straight.

Dom pulled up his head, face red with mirth. " 'Hi, I'm Marcus Fenix, and I can't walk down the street without being tackled by beautiful women who want to have my babies.' "

Marcus felt his own lips twitch.

Dom continued, " 'I used to have a secretary, but she spent all her time lounging on my desk in her underwear, so I had to let her go.' "

"Dom ..."

" 'I went out in my boxers to pick up the newspaper and five marriages broke up.' "

Marcus almost snorted a laugh. "Shut your hole, Dom."

Dom was still laughing, although with more speaking ability than before. "You really think you could seduce Anya Stroud? Anya. Frigging. Stroud. The operative word being 'Stroud'." Marcus squinted in thought. "Dude, ain't no way anybody can seduce a Stroud woman without her express permission in triplicate. I got news for you, Marcus: _you_ were the one who got persuaded to sleep with _her_."

"I ..." Marcus couldn't think. It was like trying to do four-dimensional math without pen and paper.

"Ask her the next time you see her. Go on, if you've broken up and you really did take advantage of her, she'll say so. But I doubt it." Dom giggled. "You got played!"

"I did not get played." Marcus saw Rookie out of the corner of his eye. The dog was just panting, but it sure looked like he was laughing along with Dom.

"You _so_ got played. She seduced you and let you think it was your idea!" Dom started pounding his fist on the table again. "And you fell for it like a ton of bricks! A ton of big, dumb, doo-rag-wearing bricks."

"It's a bandana, not a doo-rag." They'd had this conversation before. Many, many times before.

"Sure, Marcus. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"I'm gonna kick your ass, Dom."

"Bitch, please. I'm a commando. You couldn't kick my ass if I had one hand tied behind my back."

"Is that so?"

"That is so. Come on, old man, let's see if you've still got it." Dom plucked the knife out of the table and slipped it back in the sheath in his discarded jacket. He patted the tabletop. "Put 'er there." Dom dug his elbow into the wood and held out his hand for arm-wrestling. "Best three out of five."

Marcus rolled up his sleeves. "You're on, Santiago."

#

[0110]

"Best fifteen out of twenty-eight."

"You're on."

They switched to their non-dominant hands to give their right arms a break from the constant strain.

"You're going down, Fenix."

"I'm just getting started, pipsqueak."

#

[0200]

Their arm-wrestling competition had degenerated into an old-fashioned tussle. Marcus had Dom's head in a lock with Dom trying to trip him up as they stumbled around in a circle.

"Say 'Uncle'!" Marcus demanded.

"Never!" came the traditional response. He hadn't given in when it was Carlos who had Dom's head trapped in the crook of his elbow, either.

Rookie was dancing around them, roo-roo-ing happily and poking his head in to lick their faces whenever he could.

Dom spat out dog saliva. "Get your mutt off me!"

"He's not a mutt!"

"He's a stinky, mangy mutt, and I'll never say 'Uncle'!"

"Say it!" Marcus gave him a vicious scalp burn with his knuckles.

"I'll die first!" Dom shouted.

"That can be arranged!"

#

[0300]

They lay slumped in opposite corners like boxers between rounds. Dom was nursing a bloody nose and Marcus had a goose-egg developing on the side of his head where Dom had run him into the corner of an old freezer unit.

Marcus took his bandana off to probe the lump with his fingers. "Ow."

"Big baby." Dom sounded like someone with a bad cold because he was pinching his nostrils shut. "Can't take a little bump on the head." With his other hand he was fending off Rookie's attempts to clean him up.

"Tip your head back or it's not going to stop bleeding."

"Shuddup. I know what to do for a bruddy nose. Gimme your doo-rag."

"It's a _bandana_, and hell no. I don't want Dom blood all over it." Marcus snugged it back on his head and got up to give Dom a hand. "Let's go get some ice from the mess hall."

"So you admit it! I win."

"You do not win, this is a cease-fire."

"Pansy. If you're gonna give up, just say so."

"Fine, then: this is intermission. We'll pick up tomorrow night."

"Best thirty-six out of seventy?"

"You're on. Tomorrow."

"Okay."

Marcus let the dog out first while Dom got his jacket. "So," Marcus said, "are we good?"

Dom squinted at him thoughtfully, not an easy thing to do while tipping your head back and pinching your nose. "Yeah, we're good."

"Good."

"Lessgo get some ice for my bruddy nose."

"Right. And then we'll get you back to your wife."

"Yes we will." Dom threw his arm around Marcus's shoulders as they walked to the mess hall, and Marcus let him keep it there.

Through it all, Rookie never growled once.

**# # #**

"Jacinto's Remnant" says Maria was missing for ten years; "The Slab" says fourteen.  
I'm going with ten years so that Dom and Maria were married longer before she vanished.  
If anybody finds a definitive source, let me know.


	82. E-Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 0415 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base: 0415 hours]

_He slowly drifts out of sleep like a feather lifted in an updraft. The lingering wisps of some delicious dream swirl around him like smoke. It had been about Her, and when he opens his eyes She is lying next to him. He rolls onto his side and throws his arm across her waist._

_She's all toasty warm from their combined body heat and breathing in a deep, hypnotic rhythm. His own breathing automatically paces itself to her inhalations. He puts his nose in her hair, which smells of graphite dust, metal and some underlying scent that has no name, it's just Her._

_He slides his hand down low on her stomach to press Her against him, and her backside meets the hard resistance of ... metal pants?_

The realization that he was wearing armor snapped Baird out of his sleep-induced time displacement.

For a moment he'd forgotten who and where he was: 1) Baird, Corporal D. S., and 2) snuggling with the person who'd so casually thrown his still-beating heart in a blender and set it to "Liquefy".

He shook his head like he was fighting off anesthesia. Even so, the illusion of being much younger was so strong that he was positive if he lifted the hair away from the nape of her neck he'd see a chain of tiny ball bearings. Baird blinked rapidly, but all his eyes wanted to do was focus on her earlobe, right in front of his face and in prime condition for nibbling.

'_Shit! What the hell am I doing?'_ Sure, an old friend had needed some comforting after a loss, but that didn't mean he had to cuddle with a woman who'd made him seriously consider taking The Swim That Needs No Towel.

And then Baird realized he was still spooning Sharon. In fact, all that was required to complete their customary afterglow position was moving his hand up about a few inches and— '_Crap! I've got to get out of here!'_

He sprang out of the bed like it was on fire and fairly sprinted down the wooden steps to the shop floor.

DENIS took one look at his wild expression and snatched up the jar of bolts he'd been cleaning with a little wire brush. He floated up out of reach, clutching the jar jealously.

"I'm not going to throw anything, DENIS," Baird promised, trying to calm himself for the robot's sake. He'd given up trying to believe that robots couldn't have the mechanical equivalent of a personality. JACK didn't have much of one because was an assembly-line robot, not designed to have quirks and preferences like the thinking machines that Sharon crafted. She always made hers with random variables in their programming so that they would develop distinct habits and eccentricities. DENIS, for one, was easily bored and spent his nights and off-hours organizing and cleaning things like the bolts he was so zealously guarding from Baird and his raging temper.

Despite his assurances, DENIS remained out of range.

Baird gave up on convincing him and sat down on the couch with his head in his hands, literally pulling out his hair over Sharon. His pride screamed for revenge, or at the very least a goddamn _apology_. His mind flipped through all the reasons he should kick her out and let her get over JEEB on her own time. His body wanted to be up there in bed, falling back to sleep with his arms around the only woman he'd ever wanted.

'_Don't you goddamn dare, Corporal!'_ he yelled at himself. _'She basically left you at the altar, remember? She married the guy who was supposed to be your best man__! Yeah, it's a frigging shame her kid died, but that doesn't mean you have to be her bitch!'_

A long, piercing scream cut through the air like the shriek of the damned.

The next thing Baird knew he was upstairs again, cradling Sharon and murmuring sweet nothings in her ear.

'_God damn it. All she has to do is snap her fingers and I come running.'_

Then he realized Sharon wasn't calling his name; she was crying out for James.

_'You've got to be frakking kidding.'_ Baird snarled in humiliated rage and started pulling away from her.

Sharon pawed at him like an exhausted swimmer clinging to a buoy. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she cried, looking as dazed as when he'd found her in the street that evening. "I couldn't get to him in time, Damon. I'm sorry."

'_What?'_

"I'm so sorry about James, he—" she buried her face in his chest. To his horror, Baird saw that his hand was stroking her hair without him telling it to do so. Sharon blurted, "He blew up. I couldn't get to him in time and he blew up. James blew up, he just blew up."

_'Oh my God, she was there? That son of a bitch made her watch while he killed himself? Bastard!'_

Even a jilted lover couldn't deny a firm hug to someone who'd seen their spouse disintegrate right in front of them. Despite his best efforts at insensitivity, Baird still retained basic human kindness. He shuddered at the idea of his childhood friend disappearing in a blast of torn flesh and bone. Cole had told him how James had died. Landmines weren't clean and silent like Sharon's vaporizing rockets; they were noisy, imprecise and horribly messy. Watching James get cut down by a Grinder would have been less traumatizing.

Sharon clasped her arms around him so tightly it hurt. She mumbled brokenly, "I got some of him in my hair."

Baird decided his pride could probably wait until morning.

"It's okay, babe," he said. He pressed his lips to her forehead, almost a kiss. "It was a long time ago. It's over now. Go back to sleep." He smoothed out the blankets underneath them and lay down with her on his chest. His hands alternated stroking her wavy hair down her back, like petting a cat. "It's over now. Shhh, just sleep."

Sharon rubbed her cheek against his shirt a few times. Her breathing soon evened out and her eyes closed and stayed that way.

"It'll be all right in the morning, babe, you'll see. Everything will be fine tomorrow." He almost believed it himself.

Within a minute she was asleep again. The hypnotic stroking of her back had soothed Baird too, because he followed her into slumber soon after.

#

[0715 hours]

Sharon came awake lying full-length on top of Damon.

She jerked her head up, her hands braced on his sides like she was a surfer about to stand up on her board.

His clear blue eyes came open and focused on her. She stared into them, frozen in place.

"We didn't. Did we?" she asked, horrified.

"Oh, sure, Sharon. We got totally plastered on Dizzy's vodka and did it like bunnies all night long. Then we put our clothes back on and remade the bed. You just don't remember because the sex _blew your mind_."

"Ha frigging ha. You're hilarious." She slid off of him and stood there very, very relieved. If it were to happen—and she wasn't saying it would—she wouldn't want it to be some drunken mistake made in a moment of grief.

"Thanks for ... you know. With JEEB," she said, dusting herself off to smooth out some of the wrinkles. "On top of watching Ding-Dong and Connor die ... I guess JEEB was the last straw, and I kind of lost it for a little while." She flipped her hair back and fiddled with her bandages, not looking at him.

"Hey, any time you want to lie on top of me all night is fine and dandy. Just give me some advance warning so I can oil myself up first."

"Yeah, yeah." The awkwardness was dissipating surprisingly fast. Sharon was exceedingly grateful for his flippant humor. She cleared her throat. "I'll see you at the mess hall."

"Save me a bread roll."

"No promises." She gave him a small but genuine smile and then exited as quickly as she could without seeming like she was running away.

Baird lay there a while longer, watching dust motes swirling in the disturbed air from the closing door. He was deliberately not thinking, deliberately not trying to feel anything, just committing this moment to his perfect memory so that he could look at it any time he wanted.

**# # #**

**Hoo, boy! This one took a while because I had to get it juuust right. You've no idea how many POV changes and false starts went into this chapter!**


	83. E Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 0800 Dom

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base: 0800 hours]

Someone was shaking Dom awake. When he rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes clear, at first he thought the hulking figure was Carmine because of the helmet. When the kid spoke, Dom remembered Marcus had forbidden Carmine to wear his helmet except outside where he might actually need it.

"Ith ur thift," Nash said, which Dom correctly interpreted as _It's your shift_. Nash was the poor kid who'd taken the Boomshot round to the face. He wasn't used to his prosthetic jaws and teeth yet and tended to lisp heavily. Eventually he'd get used to them, like someone learning how to speak with a pierced tongue. But his appearance wouldn't come back like his voice, which was why he always wore his helmet. Nash had lost an eye, most of his upper and lower jaws, a lot of facial skin, and had virtually every bone in his face broken. A lot of people in the COG had terrible scars, but Nash's appearance was evidently so shocking that he wouldn't let anyone but the doctors see his face. The helmet also meant he could remain on active duty because its visual sensors compensated for his lack of depth perception.

"Thanks, man. I'll wake Marcus and the others."

"Thur, Dom. Haff a good un."

"Sleep tight, Nash." Nash wandered away to find a space for himself among the hundreds of people who were sleeping on the gym floor until the base was officially clear of Polyps.

Dom rolled over to look at his lovely wife. He hardly noticed the scars anymore. They were just a part of Her Face, and he loved everything about Her Face. Occasionally someone new to them would raise an eyebrow at her appearance, but there were enough people like Nash around who _didn't_ wear helmets that Maria's injuries paled in comparison. _'There's always somebody who's got it worse,'_ Dom thought.

She stirred when he kissed her forehead. "Sorry, honey," he whispered so he wouldn't disturb the other sleepers in the gymnasium. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Maria blinked a few times. Was her cloudy eye getting clearer? Dom couldn't tell in the dim light from the high windows, but he wasn't going to get his hopes up. Still, it couldn't hurt to go see Doc Hayman later. Maria didn't seem to take much notice of her reflection, but she would eventually, and Dom didn't want her to feel dismayed about it. Every day, just in case today was the day she finally noticed, Dom conditioned and brushed her hair and helped her apply makeup that Anya had donated. As used to scars as men were now, Dom was starting to get envious looks again. She was that beautiful; even with half her face torn up, Maria could still turn heads. She certainly still turned Dom's head.

"When can we go home?" Maria asked. Her eyes darted around to make sure no one was watching, and then she pulled his head down to whisper in his ear, "I want to practice again."

Dom choked on an embarrassed laugh. He hadn't expected that to be the first thing on her mind after waking. Well, the first thing on the new Maria's mind. Pre-war Maria's, _ahem_, "appetite" had surprised (and delighted) her young husband. Why not post-war Maria?

He smiled down at her. "We'll do that just as soon as we can, sweetheart. I have to go to work first."

"Because of all the noises yesterday?" Maria and the other "high priority" civilians (i.e. women and children) had been moved to the bunkers soon after the first Leviathan showed up at Pelruan. All they would have heard of the battle were some muffled explosions.

"Yes, because of the noises. Marcus and I are going to go make sure nothing's left that would make noises, okay?"

"Okay. But hurry." Maria only blinked once, but it was a very sultry blink. Apparently her seductiveness was hard-wired.

Dom grinned. "I'll hurry, believe me." He kissed her forehead again. Maria still looked at him expectantly, so he gave her a slow, sweet kiss on the mouth too.

"Bye-bye, Dom," she said.

Dom tucked their blankets in around her before standing. "Bye-bye, Maria," he answered. Maria went back to sleep immediately. Dom double checked that their trackers were both functioning and that Mrs. Wilson was nearby before he reluctantly made his way toward the gym door.

When he looked around for Marcus Dom found him a few rows over, propped up on his elbow with Rookie snoozing at his feet. Presumably Nash had woken him too and he had been watching Dom and Maria since then. Marcus met Dom's eyes and nodded the way he used to in school when Dom had made a particularly difficult Thrashball catch.

That made Dom ridiculously happy. He was a grown man and his brother/best friend's approval shouldn't matter so much, but it did anyway. It stung that Marcus had doubted Dom's ethics in the first place, but his confession about "seducing" Anya had explained a lot. A_ lot_. Dom should have known Marcus would have a guilt trip going about how his relationship with Anya had started; he did about everything else. This was valuable information Dom needed to think about for a while.

And now Marcus was going to have a guilt trip about his guilt trip. Dom's suspicions were confirmed when they met up outside the door to retrieve their Lancers from the temporary armory and Marcus said, "Listen, Dom, I gotta go walk the dog—" (Rookie practically had his legs crossed from being off his potty break schedule by two hours) "—but I wanted to say again that I'm sorry." Marcus flicked his fingers at the patient dog, and Rookie ran on ahead to his dumping ground.

They signed out their weapons and Dom patted Marcus on the shoulder as they walked down the potholed asphalt toward where Rookie was taking care of business. "Marcus," Dom said, "I know you mean that. And I know you'll make it up to me somehow."

Marcus nodded gravely.

"In fact," Dom said, "you can start making it up to me right now." He gave Marcus's shoulder a friendly squeeze.

"How's that?" The doo-rag-wearing ton of bricks actually looked like he wanted to be punished. Dom decided to oblige him.

"Like this," he said, and gave Marcus a sideways shove that sent him stumbling into a huge mud puddle.

"Ah, shit," Marcus said after he'd caught his balance. His pant legs were thoroughly coated from the calf down with thick, clinging mud. No doubt his civilian shoes were already filled with earthy goo. After Rookie finished his toilette Marcus would have to _squish-squish-squish_ all the way back to his quarters to change.

Marcus glared at him. "Really, Dom? Really?"

Dom snickered. "Yup."

Marcus lifted one leg out of the puddle to see the damage. It looked more like a muddy tree trunk than a leg. Dom snorted.

"Very mature, Dom. Are you going to help me out or not?" Slogging his way to the edge was going to be a little difficult with a Lancer in one hand.

"Nope," Dom said, "you'd just pull me in." It was exactly the kind of thing Carlos would have done, and Marcus un-frowned for a second.

Marcus pointed at Dom as he slow-motion-stumbled his way to the edge of the pothole. "I'll get you for this."

Dom grinned smugly. "No you won't."

Marcus had to climb out of the pothole on his hands and knees. Dom snorted again. "Oh yeah?" Marcus asked. "Why not?"

Dom decided to continue with the immature-little-brother theme. As he backed away down the street, he did a victorious "butter churn" dance using his Lancer for the stick. "Because you owe me one, you owe me one, you owe me one," he sang to the tune of a rap song he knew Marcus hated.

Marcus un-frowned again as he stood up on dry asphalt. "You're going to milk this for all it's worth, aren't you?"

Dom's only reply was an evil chuckle. He turned away and strutted off toward the mess hall_. 'You want to pay for your mistake, Marcus? Well, there's plenty more where that came from.'_ The genius of Dom's plan was that Marcus _would_ actually feel like he was atoning for his sins, and Dom got a free pass to mess with him.

A truly devious smile spread across Dom's face.

'_This is going to be fun.'_

**# # #**

**I know, I know, I know: it's been a looong time since I added a chapter. I just didn't feel like writing for a while.**

**After seeing the launch trailer for GOW: Judgment, I have come to this conclusion:  
I'm not going to try to fit the new game's plot into my story.  
Number One reason: Clearly they are taking liberties with the entire GOW story, because a month after E-Day Baird is supposed to be a teenager in boot camp who has just met Cole, not a thirty-something lieutenant with his own squad. That said, I am very, very excited for the new game!**

**And hey, how cool is it that Judgment is set in Halvo Bay? I had no insider knowledge, I swear. **


	84. 1 year 20 weeks before E-Day:1700 Marcus

1 YEAR, 20 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Ephyra City, Tyrus: 1700 hours]

Sylvia's birthday would forever be entangled with the Battle of Aspho Fields, but the Santiago and Flores families had agreed they would acknowledge only her birth on that day, and mourn Carlos five weeks later on the anniversary of the Embry Star ceremony. It was obvious to Anya that only Dom and Maria would ever know the night of the ceremony was also an anniversary of sorts.

Anya directed the taxi to drop her off a block away from Dom and Maria's house so she would have time to collect herself. She stood on the sidewalk for a few moments, fiddling with the ribbon on the present she'd brought for little Sylvie.

Dom had been very evasive about whether or not Marcus knew Anya was coming, which meant he probably didn't. Dom had answered Anya's probing questions in such a way that the only way to get the unadulterated truth out of him would be to come out and say, "Dominic Eduardo Santiago, are you lying to me?"* and that would break Anya's self-imposed rules of propriety. Helena would have just grabbed Dom by the family jewels and ordered him to spit it out, but Anya's mother had told her precocious little girl, "Honey, you be whatever you want. If you want to be an ass-kicking name-taker like me, you go right ahead. If you want to be a classy lady like your Gramma, then you be the classiest lady ever."

Anya patted her coiffed head to make sure every ladylike hair was in place and then marched down the sidewalk toward her target like the daughter of Helena Stroud ought to.

Dom said Maria wanted Anya to come an hour early to help with the preparation, so she was the first guest to come up the short walkway to the small house. It was a stucco split-level that looked picture perfect, right down to the rosebushes and the white picket fence. Anya felt a pang of envy at the cozy domestic life Dom and Maria enjoyed, and had another, stronger one when she saw that the doormat openly proclaimed, "Love Lives Here."

The doorbell chimed a perky tune when Anya pressed the button, and after a few seconds Maria opened the door with a brilliant smile. "Anya! You made it." Maria was wearing a pink dress and a frilly little apron. She took one of Anya's hands and pulled her gently over the threshold. "Come in, come in! I've got a cup of coffee and a stack of name cards waiting for your attention."

Anya was always a little intimidated by the presence of Maria Santiago. Dom's wife was warm, welcoming, overflowing with life and laughter; Anya hadn't inherited Helena's devil-may-care outlook on life and always found herself playing peace-maker, which made her come off bland and aloof to many people. Anya had the kind of figure used to model high fashion; Maria had the kind intended for lingerie. And Marcus had grown up around this voluptuous dark beauty; by all rights he should have been attracted to that type of woman instead of a tall, skinny blonde.

When an old friend from middle school had come to visit a few weeks ago, Anya had surprised herself by spilling her guts about "the guy I'm seeing," venting all of her frustrations with 'Mark Fenrick' to a sympathetic ear. Her friend's recommendation had been "If he's too embarrassed to be seen in public with you, he's a lost cause. Might even have another girl on the side. Dump him."

Any thoughts of following her advice went right out the window when Anya saw the lost cause stretched out on the Santiagos' sofa with curly-headed toddler draped across him, both of them fast asleep.

Marcus lay on his back with the weight of one large hand keeping Sylvia from sliding off his broad chest. The toddler had Marcus's bandana in her dimpled fist, the loose ends of the knot covered in baby drool because she'd been using it for a pacifier.

A highly un-feminist jolt of desire shot straight up the inside of Anya's legs. Her hormones and nervous system didn't know Anya couldn't bear children; all they knew was they wanted Marcus, in bed, naked, _right now_.

Maria followed Anya's fixed stare. "We call it 'food coma'," she explained. "Sylvie loves to make Marcus eat. Dom she makes fetch her toys, me she wants to change her outfit all the time, but with Marcus it's food. She just keeps stuffing things in his mouth, and he'll take whatever she gives him." Maria shook her head with a smile. "I swear he'd eat chalk if that's what she wanted."

Sylvia took a big, sighing breath with her mouth slightly open.

Marcus took a big, sighing breath with his mouth slightly open.

Anya swallowed hard and felt her face getting hot.

From the corner of her eye she saw Maria grin knowingly. Likely the gorgeous little woman had had her fair share of un-feminist jolts courtesy of Dom. There was a betting pool going on base about just how soon the Santiagos would have a third child. The biggest bets were on nine months from tonight.

Maria took Anya's elbow and pulled her into the kitchen/dining room. "You can sit right here and fill out the cards from this list." Maria deliberately placed Anya's chair so that she could see Marcus and Sylvia, and gave her a stack of place cards to inscribe. Anya lowered her lashes, embarrassed until Maria fondly tucked a stray loop of Anya's hair back into her coif. "I'm glad you came, Anya," she said. Her voice was so genuine that it dispelled Anya's feelings of awkwardness. Clearly Maria knew of and approved her relationship with Marcus. Having another woman be aware that she and Marcus were 'together' gave Anya an unexpected high.

"Thank you for inviting me, Maria." Anya made sure to put all of her unspoken gratefulness into those words. She had been social with the Santiagos plenty of times since the Embry Star ceremony, but this was the first time she had been to a social function with Marcus since the awkward dinner Adam Fenix had arranged that pivotal evening.

Maria beamed. "It wouldn't be a party without you. You're practically family."

Anya looked quickly down at the guest list. _'She's that certain?'_ Anya thought. _'That's ... I don't know what to think about that.'_ Anya still wasn't sure how long this relationship would last; it had been stuck in neutral since that first night, never progressing even to late-night phone calls or meeting for coffee. All she knew for certain was that she still wanted him. Especially after tonight's party. She glanced up at the man and baby on the sofa. _'Especially.'_

"I'm going to go change before the rest of the guests come," Maria explained as she walked toward the stairs. "Dom!" she called loudly. Neither Marcus nor Sylvia stirred. "Anya's here!"

"Hi Anya!" Dom bellowed from where he was grilling in the backyard. "Glad you could make it! I'll be inside in just a few! Got a couple more burgers to scorch!"

"Okay, Dom," Anya called, just loud enough for him to hear her. She set to work lettering the place cards carefully, limiting herself to glancing at the sleeping pair only between cards.

Anya had to admit she was completely infatuated with her mostly-secret lover. She wasn't naïve enough to say she was in love with him; it was more like deep admiration mixed with a dizzying hunger for his impressive body. All through her party chore she stole glimpses of his soft black hair, square chin, full mouth and perfectly straight brows. He had a snub nose that would have been called adorable on anyone else, and neat ears framed by meticulously groomed sideburns that her fingers were itching to trace. And then there was his build. _'Yowza.'_ Anya fanned her warm face with a name card.

She was mostly done when Dom came in the back door with two platters piled high with burgers and ribs. He set them down on the second of the three tables lined up end-to-end to accommodate all of the Santiagos, Floreses and their plus-ones. Normally Dom and Maria's parties weren't invitation-only, but they had too many friends and relatives to all fit in their house and yard at once. Her age-appropriate party had been this morning; tonight was more for the adults to coo over her and socialize than it was for finger-painting and Musical Chairs. Anya had no trouble picturing Dom doing those things._ 'Not Marcus, though.' _She looked again at the near-holy bandana crumpled in the little girl's fist. _'Well, maybe he would.'_

Dom gave Anya's shoulders a quick brotherly squeeze as he peered down at the name cards. "Looks like we'll have just enough room for the grown-ups in here, and the big kids in the backyard with Bennie." Dom sighed. "I just hope he doesn't start another food fight like he did this morning. You have no idea how hard it is to get smashed birthday cake out of grass."

Anya laughed. "Sounds like you found out the hard way."

"You got that right. I should have been more prepared: at his own first birthday party he—oh, wow..." Dom trailed off.

Anya looked up at him to see him staring open-mouthed into the living room.

Maria stood there, swishing the skirt of her dress almost shyly and batting her eyes at Dom. She was an absolute vision. The off-the-shoulder dress followed her classical curves without really revealing anything and flared out around her legs in a bell shape all the way to the floor. The deep purple color made her creamy skin glow like she was lit from the inside, and glossy barrel curls cascaded down her back from the rhinestone combs holding her hair. Clearly Maria had gone all-out with her party outfit.

Dom was still looking at her like he'd never seen a woman before.

Anya and Maria shared a giggle full of feminine pride. "Dom, aren't you going to tell me my score?" Maria asked, twirling in a slow circle with one bare shoulder slightly lifted.

"Ten," Dom squeaked. He shook his head, cleared his throat and tried again, declaring, "Ten. Absolutely, totally, a perfect ten out of ten." He crossed the room and put his hands on her waist slowly, almost like he was asking permission. Maria placed her arms around his neck and smirked proudly.

'_I should really join the betting pool,'_ Anya thought.

"How long is this party, again?" Dom asked his wife.

Maria opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by the loud revving of an engine outside that immediately cut off.

Dom frowned. "Who could that be? Nobody else is supposed to come early." He went to the large front window and opened the curtains wider. "Oh, no," he said in the horrified tones reserved for someone who realizes they've left their wallet at home on a first date.

"What?" Maria went to stand beside him. "Oh, no," she said in a similar voice.

"What?" Anya parroted. "Who is it?"

Both of them turned toward her, looking very sheepish. Anya got a bad feeling in the depths of her stomach.

"It's my cousin Sofia," Maria said apologetically. "I had to invite her since she's family, but I didn't think she'd actually come." She put her hands to her cheeks. "I didn't even have her on the guest list!" She wasn't lying; no one named Sofia had been on the list Anya copied out.

Anya didn't get it. "So? Is she rude or something?"

Dom cut his eyes to Maria. "Something like that."

Maria twisted her hands a little. "She's kind of ... kind of ..." Maria sighed. "She's always had a thing for Marcus, and she's—" The doorbell chimed.

The Santiagos hesitated for a moment. Then an irritated voice called, "Maria, Dom, I saw you through the window, open the door."

After one more apologetic look to Anya, Maria opened it.

If Anya were compared to a clothes model, and Maria a lingerie model, then Sofia was a centerfold. She had shining dark hair, legs that went on forever and a whole lot of makeup. She was also very beautiful and sporting an impressive amount of cleavage.

She looked like sex personified. And her eyes went straight to Marcus.

'_Mine!'_ roared something deep inside Anya.

Anya was so startled by her own reaction that she jumped a little in her chair.

"Awww, isn't that darling?" cooed Sofia. "All tuckered out." She shoved Sylvia's present into Dom's hands and strolled over to the couch on her four-inch heels. "Has she been making Marcus eat tons of food again?"

Anya felt another spike of jealousy that Sofia knew that little detail. It brought to mind many previous gatherings where Marcus would have encountered this seductive woman. And if he'd had a few drinks, like he had during dinner after the Embry Star ceremony...

Sofia extended a long-nailed hand to touch Marcus's hair.

'_Don't!'_ roared the same part of Anya.

Sofia looked up as if she'd actually heard Anya say something. She paused, her hot pink nails just inches from violating Marcus's personal space. "Who's this?" she said with just a hint of steel in her voice.

Dom said with a touch of steel himself, "This is Anya. She's Mar—" Maria elbowed him in the side. "_Maria_'s friend," Dom covered quickly.

"Oh, good," Sofia smirked. "Always nice to meet one of Maria's girl friends. Don't have that many myself." She seemed almost proud of the fact. Truly, Anya couldn't imagine many women wanting to be friends with such a blatant man-eater.

Anya rose and went over to introduce herself like the lady she'd schooled herself to be. "Anya Stroud," she said loudly, hoping to wake Marcus. "I work on base with Dom and Marcus."

Marcus's eyes drifted open when she said his name. His sleepy gaze found her face, and maybe it was a trick of the light that made them shine.

Then the moment was broken when Marcus felt three more pairs of eyes watching him.

"Uh ... hi," he said warily. "Did I sleep through the party?"

"No, silly," Sofia said in a smoky voice. "You've woken up just in time. Here, let me take Sylvie so you can get up." She extended her arms, but Marcus stood up swiftly still holding the little girl.

"It's all right, I've got her." He adjusted his massive arms around the waking toddler, who reached out a chubby hand to grasp Marcus's chin. He looked down at Sylvie with the softest expression Anya had ever seen on his face.

She felt another searing jolt of desire.

"I didn't think you'd come, Sofia, so I haven't set a place for you," Maria hinted broadly.

Sofia waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, that's okay. I'll sit in the backyard with the kiddos if I have to." She looked like she knew full well that the adults would never go for that.

Anya went back to the dining room. "I'll make a place card for you. How do you spell your name? With a 'ph' or an 'f'?"

"With an 'f'." Sofia sashayed into the dining room, giving Marcus a clear view of her curvaceous rear end. But although they were standing close together, when Anya snuck a peek at Marcus it was her own legs that he was covertly checking out, not Sofia's. That was significant because Anya was wearing loose silk trousers that showed no skin at all, and Sofia's miniskirt was so short and tight that it might have been a belt in a previous life.

It went like that all through the boisterous family dinner. Sofia tried to switch her place card to be next to Marcus; Maria switched them back. Sofia leaned across the table to talk to him; Marcus kept his eyes on her face like she was wearing a nun's habit rather than giving him a glimpse into her bra. Anya passed the bowl of coleslaw to him; he brushed her fingers with his own while taking it, not something he would ever do by accident.

Anya's own family had been limited to one set of grandparents, one aunt, and her mother. Holiday gatherings were small but intimate affairs dominated by strong female types, with Grampa looking on in contented silence. The Santiago-Flores clan was immense and the men were just as loud and opinionated as the women. There were cousins and uncles and aunts and more grandparents than Anya could keep track of, older children acting much younger and getting underfoot quite literally in some cases, not to mention unrelated friends like herself. Although the official children's party had been earlier that day, there were still plenty of kids who came with their parents. Bennie was having the time of his almost-three-year-old life, sprinting around the house with several other kids his age, all of them dressed in mismatched costumes from his toy chest and their faces smeared with cupcake icing.

Astonishingly, all of the small children were vying for the attention of "Unka Maka". Each time a little one came up to the table with a toy, Marcus gently reminded them that Sylvia was the birthday girl so she was allowed to get all his attention today, but he would be glad to play with them tomorrow or at the next party. Anya gathered that he spent a lot of his time at the Dom's house down on the imitation Ostrian rug playing with toddlers and plastic trucks.

Picturing that made Anya feel like her insides were melting butter.

In between his tactful refusals of other children's attention, Sylvia stuffed chunks of every kind of food in his mouth with the order, "Maka, eee," which Anya took to mean "Marcus, eat." It was a good thing Gears were bottomless pits, because she never got tired of it, and Marcus never refused her orders.

Although after dinner Sylvia was happy to be passed around briefly, after a minute or two in someone else's arms she would reach out for Unka Maka again. The little girl lavished so much affection on him that most fathers would have been jealous, but Dom always handed Sylvia back to Marcus immediately after she landed in his arms during another round of hug-the-birthday-girl. And since Marcus's hands were always full with one child or another, Sofia never had a chance to close in on him.

The only hiccup in the evening came when Marcus's bandana disappeared.

About halfway through the serving of birthday cake and coffee, Maria noticed Sylvia was chewing on a linen napkin, not the bandana any longer. "I'll just look around," she told Marcus.

Only people very familiar with Marcus would recognize the subtle tension in his face. Anya had never asked why he wore it even when off duty, but she sensed there was a good reason.

Although the bandana was an optional part of the regulation fatigues, very few men could pull it off in a non-military setting. On Marcus it looked like it had always belonged there. Anya was actually more comfortable in public when he was wearing it because for her, he might as well have been walking around shirtless. It was very difficult to see his uncovered hair and not be able to run her fingers through it like Sofia almost had.

The scrap of black cloth wasn't anywhere on the table, under the table, near the table, in the dining room, the living room, the kitchen, the backyard, etc. Soon it had become almost a game for the adults, and even the kids were looking into people's shoes and checking the waste bins for it. The family was laughing and chatting as they searched, thinking up more and more outrageous places it could be and ridiculous reasons it might be there.

Only Marcus, Sylvia, Anya and Sofia remained at the table. Sofia was sipping a mug of tea while running her eyes over Marcus, and Marcus was bouncing Sylvia on his knee while Anya entertained her by cutting snowflakes out of folded paper. The slight frown on his face and the way he never looked away from the toddler told Anya he was very disturbed by the bandana's disappearance.

Finally Dom came back with the wayward bandana, dragging a highly reluctant Benedicto by the collar. "Found it!" he declared to everyone, waving the black cloth. "Got mixed up with some of Bennie's dress-up clothes! Thanks for the help, everybody."

There was a general cry of approval and a smattering of applause, then the adults settled back into their cake and coffee at various posts around the house.

When the conversations had picked up again, Dom outed Bennie in a quiet voice. "Actually, Bennie hid it under his pillow. Bennie, what do you say to Uncle Marcus?"

Bennie dug his tiny shoe into the rug. "I sowwy, Unka Maka."

"And why are you sorry?" Dom patted the little boy's head, but his voice was firm. Maria came up to stand next to Marcus and crossed her arms, giving her son an expectant look.

"'Cause iss special."

Dom smoothed Bennie's hair. "That's right. It's a special bandana. Why's it special?"

"Unka Cawwo."

"That's right. Uncle Carlos gave it to Marcus, so it's special and you can't keep it to play make-believe, okay?"

"Otay."

Dom handed the cloth to the little boy. "Now give the special bandana back to Uncle Marcus and get a hug."

Bennie solemnly took the bandana and held it out to Marcus with his head lowered. Marcus folded it on his knee, then put it carefully in his back pocket. "Thank you, Bennie. I know you like my bandana, but your dad's right. It's special and I want to keep it, okay?"

"Otay." Bennie didn't seem like he was going to cry, but he didn't look too happy either. Marcus waited a beat, then scooped up the little boy and placed him on the knee that wasn't supporting Sylvia. "Now are you going to give me a hug?"

"Yeah." Bennie perked up and squeezed Marcus around the neck. Marcus pretended to wheeze.

"Oof! Careful, buddy, you're really strong. Now are you going to give your daddy a hug?"

"Otay." He leaned out to do so without leaving Marcus's lap.

"Are you going to give your mommy a hug?"

"Otay." He did.

"Are you going to give ... _Sylvie_ a hug?" Marcus asked this with a raised eyebrow, like he knew the answer.

"No!" crowed Bennie.

"No? Why not?" Marcus feigned surprise. Dom pulled Maria close and they grinned together.

"'Cause she tinky!"

"She's stinky? Why's she stinky?" He bounced Sylvie, who hooted with laughter and gnawed on her fist.

"'Cause she _girl_!"

"Girls aren't stinky," Marcus insisted.

"Yeah are! Girl tinky!" Bennie maintained.

"Naw, I think you should give Sylvie a great big kiss." He leaned the children toward each other. They shrieked with laughter and fended each other off with stiff arms.

Marcus went on like that until Bennie was over his shame from The Great Bandana Theft.

Cleaning up took all of half an hour with the sheer number of helping hands, and then the crowd trickled off to their homes. Predictably, Sofia tried to finagle a nightcap out of Marcus.

"There's a great little bar just a few blocks down, and I could sure go for an adult beverage," she suggested charmingly.

"It's good of you to offer," Marcus said formally, "but I'm supposed to give Anya a lift home."

He hadn't actually offered to do that yet, but it was the reason Dom had insisted Anya come to the party in a taxi instead of her own car.

Sofia conceded defeat more gracefully than Anya would have liked. "That's too bad, Marcus. Guess we'll have to take a rain check."

"Rain check," Marcus nodded insincerely.

"Rain check," Sofia agreed, looking like she was going to do everything in her power to collect. She showed even more leg as she slipped into her low-riding sports car, and waved her fingers at Marcus flirtatiously as he helped Anya into the passenger seat of his sedan.

She could have sworn Marcus breathed a sigh of relief as he sank into the seat beside her. They both waved to Dom and Maria, who stood on the porch to see them off while they cradled their babies in their arms. They looked like they belonged on the cover of a magazine about how to have the perfect life in five easy steps.

Marcus drove Anya through the sleeping city in total silence. Anya knew him well enough by now to tell that it was a comfortable kind of quiet. He was the sort of introvert who is drained by social interaction, and there had been social interaction by the truckload at Sylvia's party. Anya was just enjoying the fact that he chose a quiet drive with her over drinks with a woman who would obviously like to do a lot of acrobatic things with his body, no strings attached.

By the time they got to her apartment building, Anya felt confident enough to test her theory.

"Would you like to come up for tea or coffee?" she asked. "I noticed you didn't get any at the party, and you have a long drive home."

"Yeah, I was kinda busy eating all the cake Sylvie gave me." Marcus patted his full stomach. That was a very gregarious show for him, but clearly being around young children loosened up his stiff social restrictions and he was still experiencing a residual effect.

Anya punched in the code and Marcus opened the door for her. He guided her into the elevator with a hand on the small of her back, and again opened the door for her when she unlocked her apartment.

It was the apartment she'd shared with her mother, and when Anya put her keys down in the usual place, she couldn't believe that she hadn't thought about Helena since Sofia showed up at the party. The burning jealousy had driven all the grief for her mother out of her head for hours.

Mom was everywhere: it still smelled like her, felt like her, seemed like the walls had only just stopped echoing her laughter. It didn't seem possible that she had died because _her frakking armor caught on a frakking tank right after she'd tossed in a couple of frakking grenades, it's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair that she went out like that, all her beautiful, bold life snuffed out because of one split-second accident, it's not frakking fair, it's not—_

It wasn't until Marcus touched her shoulder that Anya realized she'd been standing still with her back to him for at least a minute.

Anya turned to face him, glad she had cried herself out yesterday so her eyes were dry now. "Yes?" she asked politely, forcing a stiff smile onto her face. Marcus didn't need her adding her grief to his own. After all, Anya hadn't had to watch her mother die; Marcus had seen his gut-shot best friend pull the pin on a grenade right in front of him. He'd had it so much worse than she.

Then she noticed he was holding the bandana out to her.

"It's got a lot of baby drool on it," he said apologetically. "I was hoping you'd wash it for me while I make the coffee."

Now that she knew it was a gift from Carlos, she realized what it meant for him to let her handle the bandana.

Anya took it in both hands like it was the Shroud of Turin.

"Of course, Marcus," she said quietly. "I'll take care of it." She gestured toward the kitchen cabinets with her chin. "You know where everything is."

Anya stood over the sink in the bathroom, listening to Marcus grinding coffee beans in the kitchen, frozen with indecision about which soap to use on such a precious item.

The guest soap was fancy, but it smelled like flowers. The cleaning soap was cheap and she worried that it would make the black dye run. Her regular hand soap had moisturizing cream in it that would leave a residue. She laid the bandana gently in the sink bowl and clawed frantically through the container she kept the gift soaps in. For once in her life she was grateful that men who don't know what to buy for women usually end up giving them toiletry sets.

With a flood of relief, Anya came up with a bar of patchouli-scented glycerin soap. To avoid any dye leakage, she washed the bandana in water so cold it made her hands stiffen. Then she pressed it between two lint-free towels, and when she was sure it was as good as it was going to get, she took it back out to Marcus and laid it flat on the counter to finish drying.

"Thanks," he said simply, looking up from stirring their coffees. He held her mug out to her, handle first. "Careful, it's hot." Naturally, it was the perfect temperature and tasted like a professional barista had brewed it. Marcus watched her take the first sip. He seemed to relax a little when she made a sound of approval.

"One sugar, one artificial sweetener, a teaspoon of whole milk," he said.

Anya raised her eyebrows in surprise. She'd never told Marcus how she liked her coffee.

He shrugged. "I noticed."

She gestured toward the couch. "Please, have a seat." While he settled into a spot against the arm of the sofa, she opened the glass front to the entertainment center. "Music?" she asked, already flipping on the power.

"Sure."

Anya's fingers wavered over the buttons for a moment, realizing she would remember for a long, long time whatever song she chose. Almost of its own accord, her finger touched the button for acoustic guitar. Somehow music with lyrics didn't seem appropriate for the first anniversary of her mother's death. Of Carlos's death. Of so very many deaths.

She sat on the other end of the short couch, leaning her head back against the top of the cushions. Marcus was doing the same.

Helena's apartment had one external wall that was floor-to-ceiling glass with a special filter that removed light pollution from the view. That meant Anya and Marcus could see the stars even in the middle of the sprawling metropolis. They were so bright and so many that it seemed like there were more lights in the sky than there was blackness of space.

Although when she'd arrived at the party and seen him cuddling with a baby all she'd wanted was to get him in bed, now that they were here all she wanted to do was sit with him, side by side with soft guitar playing in the background, drinking half-caff coffee and looking at the night sky.

Marcus seemed to want that too. Every hour or so he would top off their coffee mugs, but other than that he never stirred, and neither of them suggested moving into the bedroom.

Anya had expected it to be a long, hard night of missing Helena. And she did miss her mother, but with Marcus there the night wasn't so long, and it wasn't so hard. He stayed until the stars started to fade into pre-dawn, then got up and washed out their coffee cups and placed them in the dishwasher to dry.

Anya stood by the door with his bandana. He took it lightly and tied it around his head, where it belonged.

"We should do this again on the twenty-second," she said boldly. The twenty-second of next month was the anniversary of the Embry Stars. She didn't want to be alone on that night, either.

It seemed Marcus felt the same. "The twenty-second," he agreed. "I'll make sure I'm here." He slipped into his leather jacket and let himself out with a soft goodbye. Anya watched the security screen next to the door so she could see him one more time as he passed the external camera.

Marcus kept his word and came to see her on the twenty-second. Again their only entertainment was coffee and music, and again Anya found that star-gazing with Marcus Fenix was better than sex with any other man on Sera.

She decided maybe she'd give their relationship a couple more months.

**# # #**

**I may change a few small details later, but I felt I owed it to you to publish something, especially since several readers have reported serious cases of "Marcus and Anya withdrawal." **** If there are typos or mistakes, please send me a message so I can fix them ASAP.  
* I have no idea what Dom's middle name is, I just used his dad's first name. Because you have to call someone by all three names when you're chewing them out, right? I also made up the part about the bandana being a gift from Carlos.  
**


	85. E Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 0820 Marcus

**DISCLAIMER FOR LAST CHAPTER: I avoided all spoilers, so I honestly didn't know the redhead in GOW: Judgment was going to be named Sofia. I was just going for a name similar to Maria and Sylvia. Let's take a vote - should I change Sofia Flores's name to avoid confusion with Sofia Hendrick?**

[Vectes Naval Base: 0820 hours]

Strange things had been happening in Marcus's memory palace.

A few involved the rest of the family: Dad talking to the potted plant on his desk, Mom wearing a fur parka indoors, Carlos taking a nap on the dining table, that sort of thing. Others were atmospheric: the mists being a blue or green color, music coming from the vents instead of the speakers, the smell of baking cookies when no one was making anything.

The ones that really concerned Marcus involved Anya. Sometimes she was missing and no one seemed to know where she was. He would find her sitting in a closet or a wine cellar, just staring at the wall. When asked, she would say she was "just thinking." Instinct told him not to ask what she had been thinking about.

Other times she was wandering out in the mists that surrounded the estate, which concerned him even more because they represented the boundary between the palace and the real world. He had a queasy feeling that one day she might wander too far and never come back.

Rookie had been a natural addition to the memory palace. Normally Marcus had to spend days or even weeks memorizing the minute details of a person or item before they took on a life of their own in his internal world, but the bloodhound had just strolled right in, fully formed.

In Marcus's external world, Rookie was an excellent front-man. Marcus had found that people who would normally be overawed by the Fenix family name were much more relaxed when he had the dog with him. Their eyes went straight to the enthusiastic hound rather than the scar on Marcus's face. Funny that something a dog was doing _for_ him was taking unwanted attention away from something a dog had done _to_ him. "Yes, I am 'the' Marcus Fenix and hey, look! A puppy!" was working so well that he had started taking the dog with him just about everywhere.

Marcus had been distracted enough by Dom shoving him into a puddle—the little shithead—to forget that there could be a few more dog-killing Polyps lurking in crawlspaces and culverts. He hustled after Rookie as fast as his mud-filled shoes would let him.

When Marcus drew close to Rookie's bathroom area, the dog had finished taking care of business and was being loved-on by Sharon. When the engineer saw Marcus she gave Rookie one last pat and told him to stay.

"Marcus," she began, stopping him a dozen yards away from the dog. "I was hoping to find you two. I need to—" She glanced down at Marcus's mud-caked khakis and shoes. "What happened to you?"

"Dom," was all Marcus said, but Sharon's eyes twinkled like she understood.

Then her face became more serious. "Listen ... Marcus ..." Sharon looked over her shoulder at the dog to make sure he was staying put. He was, but he had his head tilted at a curious angle and was sniffing in their direction. Marcus had a bizarre inkling that the bloodhound could smell that they were keeping something from him. "We're burying Connor and Ding-Dong later this morning," Sharon half-whispered.

Marcus shook his head. "What does that have to do with Rookie?"

"If Rookie isn't shown their bodies, he might think they've just gone missing, and bloodhounds are trained to hunt down missing things, right?"

Marcus got it. "So he needs to know they're dead or he might wander off alone to look for them, is what you're saying."

"That, and ..." Sharon looked over her shoulder again. "It isn't just that Connor was his handler for a long while." She turned her sad eyes to Marcus. "Ding-Dong is his sire."

Now it was Marcus's turn to pity the dog. "Shit. You're telling me his father died and nobody's told him yet?"

Rookie sat there panting, blissfully ignorant and happy to be following orders even if they were just 'Sit' and 'Stay'.

"God damn it," said Marcus.

"Yeah," Sharon agreed. "It sucks." She sighed as they both stared at the dog. Rookie closed his mouth and wagged the tip of his tail tentatively.

Marcus felt like setting fire to a whole field of Polyps. With a flame-thrower. One in each hand.

"Is there anything I can do to ... you know, prepare him?" he asked, feeling foolish, but confident Sharon wouldn't see him that way given how she felt about the bloodhounds.

"Unfortunately, no. He'd feel that you're troubled, but he wouldn't understand why. He will definitely need you to comfort him afterward, though. Talk to him, pet him, give him treats and extra-long walks, maybe let him sleep in your quarters instead of in the hall, stuff like that."

Marcus didn't bother telling her that Rookie already slept in his quarters, on a pad underneath Nash's bed where the young soldier could reach down and touch him after the recurring nightmares of choking on his own blood. Marcus had requested that Nash be reassigned to his quarters after finding out about those, and 'living teddy bear' had turned out to be another of Rookie's talents. The dog had a knack for comforting people. Marcus hoped he could find a way to return the favor after Rookie found out Ding-Dong had been horribly murdered.

"God damn it," he repeated.

"Puppies understand who their mother is, of course, but nobody's sure if they get the concept of a father, so it may not be as hard on him as we think. But it's best to be prepared."

"Yeah," Marcus agreed. "Best to be."

Marcus still wasn't certain if seeing his father crushed to death by falling rubble was worse than if he hadn't even tried to save him and Dad had died anyway, but he was damn sure he would have lost his shit permanently if Dom hadn't been with him at the estate. And if Dom's safety hadn't been jeopardized by the Locust advance, Marcus would have stayed there pawing through the fallen stone until a Drone put a round in the back of his head.

"When's the burial?" he asked.

"Not until ten hundred. I got permission from Hoffman for you to take an hour off duty for it. We should all get something to eat first, especially Rookie. He probably won't be hungry afterward."

Marcus remembered that stage, where eating seemed like a trivial thing, so selfish and pointless when your family was frakking _dead_. It was very similar to how he felt with Anya gone. Another sharp pain in his stomach that reminded him he hadn't eaten much at all yesterday. Soon he would get weak and shaky from low blood sugar and then he wouldn't be good for anything, much less protecting Rookie if more Polyps were lurking around.

"Sure, Sharon. Rookie and I will see you at the mess hall after I've changed." Marcus called the dog. "Rook, let's go!"

Rookie rushed to Marcus's side, tail wagging like mad.

Marcus felt like a countdown had started. He looked at his chronometer. _'T-minus ninety minutes.'_

After a side trip to change into clean fatigues and his armored boots, Marcus parked Rookie outside the mess hall with several other hounds. The weather was hot enough that the double doors were propped open, so Marcus was able to keep an eye on Rookie as the dog lounged with the others, all drooling copiously at the scent of food. Most scraps went to slop the hogs, but despite the food rationing a lot of soldiers saved bits to give the dogs as they left the hall. _'We could add "garbage disposal" to their list of official duties.'_ Marcus had been able to disguise his decreased food intake by pocketing most of it and giving it to Rookie. It was a minor miracle that the dog wasn't so fat that Marcus would have to roll him along like a beach ball.

He found Dom sitting with Cole and Sharon. He grunted a hello to the group and slid onto the bench at the long table, next to Dom. That turned out to be a bad idea because Dom immediately started snitching food off of Marcus's plate.

"Oooh, that looks good," the little punk said, spearing Marcus's bread roll with his fork and dragging in onto his own tray. Bread rolls were highly coveted as one of the few foods fed to the Gears that didn't taste like cardboard or gelatin. Somehow Sharon had not one but _two_ on her tray.

Marcus gave Dom a glower that turned most soldiers' guts into water. Dom grinned unrepentantly as he sliced open the roll and spread it with the congealed oil that the cooks insisted was butter.

When Baird showed up he didn't have a bread roll, which meant one of two things: they had run out (not uncommon), or he'd gotten on a cook's bad side (also not uncommon). Either way he should have been royally pissed, but once again he was wearing that strangely mellow expression. Maybe Jace was right and Baird _was_ on drugs. He'd have to ask Doctor Hayman if any painkillers had gone missing.

Then the penny dropped when Marcus saw the look that crossed Baird's face as the corporal realized the only space left at the table was next to Sharon: half pleased and half uncomfortable. _'Oh, shit, the rumors are true,'_ Marcus realized. He had seventeen years of experience with that mixed emotion; Marcus just didn't let it show on his face.

Baird must have felt Marcus's stare, because he gave him his patented _What are __you__ looking at? _sneer and sat down next to the woman he had a crush on. He got that look on his face again when Sharon casually placed her second roll on his tray and continued chatting with Cole. It was throwaway gestures like that which were probably fueling Baird's infatuation.

Marcus wished she wouldn't be so nice to him. It was the squad leader who'd have to deal with the shit-storm of bad temper that kicked off when Baird finally realized a guy like him couldn't get a girl like her.

"So, Baird," Dom said conversationally, "when did you start wearing the COG-Blocker?"

'COG-Blocker' was the Gears' nickname for the armored codpiece that could be attached to a tactical belt. It was an optional piece of equipment, but lots of male Gears wore them because mag fields didn't do a damn thing to keep Locust drones from kneeing you in the crotch. A phantom twinge of pain in his nether regions reminded Marcus of the chunk of flying concrete that had led to him requisitioning a COG-Blocker of his own. It's hard to shout orders to your squad while dry-heaving into the bushes.

Baird answered with a deadpan, "I've got this feeling that someone, somewhere, is just waiting for the opportunity to kick me in the nuts."

His male audience murmured their agreement. Sharon giggled quietly behind her hand and Baird's eyes cut to her for a fraction of a second.

'_Please don't laugh at his jokes,'_ Marcus thought_. 'You're making it worse.'_

"Anyway," Baird continued, "I thought for sure you'd be missing _your_ COG this morning, Santiago." He nodded sideways toward Marcus while spreading 'butter' on the roll Sharon had given him. "Frankly, I'm surprised Rookie isn't gnawing on your femur right now."

Dom gave Marcus a smug look as he crammed half of the purloined pastry into his big fat mouth.

"I was wrong," Marcus stated clearly. He ignored Dom's noisy smacking. "Dom always does the right thing when it comes to Maria."

"And he lives to fight another day!" Cole boomed, slapping Dom on the back. The impact made Dom choke on the bread roll. Marcus nearly smirked.

He stopped almost-smirking when Dom stole a chunk of 'facon' off his plate.

#

[Civilian graveyard, Vectes Naval Base: 1000 hours]

Halfway up the path to the hillside graveyard, Rookie's keen nose must have caught the scent of charred flesh because he stopped abruptly and the hackles rose along his shoulders and spine. He sniffed the air cautiously, and whatever additional information he gathered made the hound deflate as suddenly as he had puffed up.

All of his loose skin sagged even further, and Rookie sat down heavily, nose pointing at the ground.

"Come on, Rook," Marcus said, patting his leg.

For once Rookie didn't immediately leap to obey. He didn't even look up.

"Rookie, they're waiting for us."

The dog's head drooped so much that his nose almost grazed the dirt.

'_This is ridiculous,'_ Marcus growled to himself. _'I am not going to drag this mutt all the way up the hill by his collar.'_

"Rookie, let's _go_,' he commanded.

The dog wobbled for a moment on his huge front paws and then flopped down on his side, sending up a puff of dust that coated him from nose to tail in Vectes's red earth.

"Shit," Marcus said to himself.

Rookie knew Ding-Dong was his father. He definitely knew.

Marcus looked up and down the path. Nobody coming or going. He knelt next to the dog and poked him in the ribs. "C'mon, Rook, you have to. Not going won't change anything."

Rookie closed his eyes like he didn't want to hear it.

Marcus laid his hand on Rookie's ribcage. It was the first time he'd ever deliberately touched the dog. Rookie often stole caresses by walking back and forth under Marcus's hand as it hung at his side, but Marcus never initiated the touch. Each one-sided contact had made the scar on his face twitch.

It wasn't twitching now. Marcus stroked the dog's side a few times. Rookie opened a droopy eye but didn't look at his master.

"Rookie," Marcus said. The base of one heavy ear moved slightly. "Look," Marcus continued, "I'll be with you the whole time." Sharon said dogs didn't understand long sentences but they did comprehend the tone of voice. So rather than wasting time dumbing down his message, Marcus just spoke like he would to a human. "You need to say goodbye to them, it's important." Rookie's eye rolled to look at him. "If you don't go, you'll regret it later, and you don't need that on top of everything else." Rookie heaved a large, unhappy sigh. Marcus patted his side gently, feeling less idiotic now that he saw it was having a positive effect. The dog's huge teeth didn't seem so threatening when covered by his sagging flews, so Marcus dared to stroke the dog's head.

'_Lo and behold, he's not biting my hand off,'_ Marcus thought wryly. _'Maybe dogs are as individual as people,'_ he conceded, _'and this one's not just biding his time until he can give me a matching scar.'_

After a minute or so of stroking Rookie's head, the dog scrambled to his feet.

"Good boy," Marcus said, making his tone sound approving. Rookie didn't wag his tail, but his eyes looked brighter. "Let's go, buddy."

The dog walked a lot slower than normal, but they made it up to the top just in time. There were easily three hundred people there, mostly nomads and a few Gears who had become friends with Connor and his dog. Several other hounds were present, probably Rookie's siblings and half-siblings.

The grave had been dug in an odd, upside-down T shape, which puzzled Marcus until he realized that it was because Ding-Dong was going to be buried lying at his master's feet. That was a little unsettling because Rookie had lain at Marcus's feet in the gym.

The mourners fell silent when Marcus and Rookie crested the hill, and parted like an honor guard when Rookie padded forward to sniff the shrouded bodies of Connor and Ding-Dong. The stink of charred meat was still quite strong, but perhaps the dog just wanted to make absolutely sure it was them.

Apparently convinced, Rookie walked to the foot of the grave and sat staring down into the deep trenches like he knew what came next. Marcus didn't even feel self-conscious when he went to stand by Rookie's side.

Sharon delivered a proud, dry-eyed eulogy, listing the many times that Connor or Ding-Dong had alerted them to enemy presence in time to evacuate. (It turned out the dog's name came from being such a good 'door bell'.) Listening to their list of accomplishments both before and after rejoining the COG, including dying in the line of duty, Marcus couldn't help thinking that the handler and his hound deserved to be buried in the _military_ cemetery. Maybe Sharon had already petitioned for that and been denied. She was likely too shattered to push any harder for it.

Marcus was sure Hoffman would have approved if she'd asked; it was probably that punk Banfield in Administrative Services. The T-boosters hadn't worked on him for whatever reason, so he'd been given a desk job, the ultimate shame for an enlisted man. Only officers, the aged or the infirm weren't out there firing Lancers; 'unfit for frontline duty' was practically a coward's brand in this wartime society, and Banfield hadn't handled the ribbing very well, instead using and abusing his meager power at the Administrative Offices to make serving Gears' lives more difficult by following the letter of the law rather than the spirit.

It was high time he and Dom had a chat with Banfield about the fair execution of his duties. Marcus didn't mind capitalizing on their reputation as badass war heroes in these types of situations.

Rookie sat stock-still through the whole thing, barely moving even when each of the three hundred mourners lined up to give him pats on the head. He let the other dogs sniff him and lick his face affectionately, but didn't respond in kind. Neither did he stir when Sharon knelt to hug him and speak a few comforting words.

The other dogs were clearly subdued, but to Marcus's biased eye they didn't seem quite as upset by this grim business as his own hound was.

Sharon sighed, still kneeling with a hand on Rookie's bent head. "You want me to take him for the afternoon?"

"No," Marcus answered, "I think getting back to work would be the best thing. Give him something else to think about."

Sharon nodded. "You're probably right." She stood, dusting the graveyard dirt off of her knees. For a moment it was just the three of them, staring down at the T-shaped furrows of red earth.

"Goodbye," Sharon said to her dead friends, then turned sharply on her heel and marched down the hill with a determined step. Marcus knew without asking that she was going off to think up some weapon that would devastate Polyps. No one had said it out loud yet, but they all believed this wasn't the last they'd seen of the flammable little bastards.

Rookie still hadn't moved. It was just him and Marcus left on the hill. Since no one was there to see and comment, Marcus sat down at Rookie's side. After a long pause, he put his arm around the dog. Rookie leaned into him just like a person would.

'_Ah, hell with it,'_ Marcus thought. _'Nobody's watching.'_ He rubbed the hound's chest in a circular motion with his other hand. Rookie pressed his forehead against Marcus's bent knee and blew out a big, lip-flapping breath that would have been funny in a different situation.

"It gets better," Marcus promised the dog. "Not completely. Not quickly. But it does get better." Rookie relaxed against Marcus's leg.

The hell with people who said dogs didn't comprehend human language; Rookie understood Tyran just fine.

**# # #**

**I've already written a Baird chapter that just needs a little polishing; update tomorrow!**


	86. E Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 1300 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base: 1300 hours]

"Wait one ... yeah, I see something. Rookie, get back." Baird half-turned to wave the dog away from the crawlspace under the Procurement and Distribution building, but it was already backing up. Maybe the pooch wasn't as dumb as it looked.

They'd already had a couple of false positives that resulted in new cat-fur liners for Bernie's boots. She wouldn't mind the bullet holes; the extra ventilation might be better for Vectes's warm climate.

Dom had done the last building, Marcus was holding onto the dog to keep it from lunging forward unexpectedly, and the only thing Baird hated more than sticking his head into dark spaces searching for things that wanted to blow it off was watching Cole do it instead. So he pulled the Boltok out of its holster and cocked it, getting down on his stomach and wriggling forward very slowly to get his arms and head into the narrow gap under the wooden building.

"Stupid, stupid,_ stupid_ design," he grumbled to the others. The building sat on short pilings to keep the wooden floor from absorbing moisture from Vectes's moist earth, creating an eighteen-inch gap that nasty things like feral cats, raccoons and Polyps liked to nest in_. _"Should at least be fenced off with lattice or chicken wire. Idiot builders. You know, I wouldn't have to do this if the COG didn't skimp on construction materials."

"Stop yapping and tell us if there are any Polyps in there," Dom ordered.

"Shut it, _Private_. I out-rank you, remember?" Baird used his elbows to inch a little farther into the dank blackness, trying to catch another glimpse of the glow he'd seen. Could be eye-shine from another damned cat, could be a Polyp. Or several.

"You don't out-rank _me_, and I'm telling you the same thing," Marcus's raspy voice said. "Zip your lip and get a good look. It's the last building on our list and I want this shit over with."

Marcus "Prima Donna" Fenix had been a little more stick-up-the-ass-ier than usual this morning. Probably didn't get enough beauty sleep last night. Or maybe he was just pissed that Baird got a bread roll at breakfast and he didn't. It was a toss-up.

'_How did she get an extra roll?'_ he wondered for the tenth time in an hour. _'I asked her to save me one but I didn't think she'd actually do it.'_ Proof she really was thankful for his attentions last night. Baird decided to scratch "ungrateful" off the list of adjectives that described Sharon. It was a long, unflattering inventory, but one item shorter now.

Using a flashlight would be detrimental when searching for things that glow in the dark, so all he could do was watch and wait, trying very hard to keep that damn bread roll from distracting him again. _'I am __not__ going to die because I can't stop thinking about baked goods, thank you very much.'_

The soft yellow lights moved into view again. Baird stared hard, willing them to blink.

They pulsed instead.

"Shit! Got a live one!" Baird shouted. Cole was covering the right side of the building, Dom the left. Marcus stood behind. The far end was open so that none of them would be hit by Baird's stray bullets. The building hadn't been cleared so there was no one inside.

"Clear!" Cole yelled, echoed by Dom and then Marcus.

He pulled the pistol's trigger several times in rapid succession. The first bright muzzle flash confirmed that it was in fact a Polyp—just one, thank Dom's god—and the second through fifth illuminated snapshots of the Polyp's explosive demise.

"Got it!" he called, and started inching back out.

"Not so fast," Marcus said. "Double check."

"It's not that big of a crawlspace, Fenix. It might be Procurement and Distribution, but they don't _store_ the stuff here, it's just records."

"Double. Check."

"Fine. Jeez, did someone piss in your coffee this morning?"

Many other squad leaders would have put a boot in Baird's back at this point, but Marcus just did that low, _I'm not impressed by your sarcasm_ growl. Another reason Baird stuck with Delta: a lot of stressed-out squad leaders got rough with underlings, but Baird had never seen Marcus raise a hand to another Gear. He damn well could have. The COG couldn't afford to put soldiers on disciplinary leave for all but the most brutal physical assaults, so bad-tempered NCOs and officers got away with a lot of physical abuse, which Baird absolutely would not stand for. Several of his demotions had been for kicking the asses of his "superiors" when they tried to slap him around for being mouthy. _'That's not PTSD, that's just being a total bastard.'_ If anybody had the makings for post-traumatic stress disorder, it was Fenix, and _he_ wasn't trying to grind Baird's face in the dirt, unlike a certain lieutenant whose ribs had taken a long time to heal after Baird rearranged them. And getting busted back down to Private wasn't really a big deal when nobody got paychecks anymore.

After fifteen tense minutes of staring into the blackness from different angles, Baird inched back. This time Marcus didn't protest, instead pushing the tac/com in his ear. "Mathieson, this is Delta One. Southwest quadrant is clear."

"Copy that, Delta: southwest quadrant is clear. Non-combatants will be released from shelters at fourteen hundred."

"Roger. Delta One out."

Dom and Cole joined them at the front of the building. "Whew," Dom exclaimed as he wiped his forehead. "Glad that's over with."

Cole mopped his face with a regulation bandana that he never wore. Probably didn't want to seem like he was aping Marcus.

Marcus was cool as a cucumber in the new armor Sharon had made for him_. 'Of course __he__ would get the fancy new prototype. No me. Nooo, it's too awesome to waste on a non-famous non-hero, right?'_ According to Cole, Fenix and Stroud weren't together anymore, either_. _He had a disturbingly good rapport with Sharon, even more at ease than he was with Anya. _'If my ex hooks up with my boss, I'm gonna frigging __lose__ it!'_

Then again, Sharon had given _him_ the extra bread roll, and didn't offer hers to Marcus. Remembering that dampened Baird's temper before it could reach flashpoint.

"Right," Marcus said. "Break for two hours, then we've got a briefing with Hoffman in his office."

"You got it, boss." Cole casually saluted the sergeant. Marcus wasn't a stickler about saluting, either. Baird had quite a collection of demotions for 'failure to salute a superior' from back when the COG still gave a shit about that stuff. It was almost too bad they'd stopped printing them out because the sheets made good toilet paper.

They split off two-and-two, Dom and Marcus heading south and Cole accompanying Baird northeast, back to the shop. Cole attached his Lancer to the back of his armor and shoved his hands in his pockets, whistling as they walked.

Baird eyed him. "You're in a good mood."

Cole smiled beatifically. "Yup."

"Anything you want to share with the class?"

He smiled wider. "Nope."

"Please, _please_ tell me you didn't bang Sam Byrne."

"Nope. But that's not a bad idea." Cole wiggled his eyebrows.

"Never mind! Forget I said anything." He was truly alarmed he'd put that thought in Cole's head. If that towering virago became a part of Cole's life, that meant she'd be part of Baird's life too, which didn't bear thinking about. _'Dammit, why can't I keep my big mouth shut?'_

"So." He tried desperately to think of a different topic. "Did you go to Connor's funeral?"

"No. Would have, but they could only spare one person from Delta Squad, and Marcus is the one with the dog, so..."

"So once again, Golden Boy gets special treatment. Figures."

A bit of puzzlement mixed in with Cole's grin. "What's eating you? Thought you'd be in good spirits after last night."

"What, me? If you think _I'm_ the one who got lucky, think again. She just needed someone to hug, and Marcus had her teddy bear, so I was the next best thing."

"Right."

"Right, what?" Baird was getting a little irritated. "I didn't sleep with her—well, not in the colloquial sense—and we're not suddenly best friends again, so what are you getting at?"

Still grinning, Cole put up his hands. "Not getting at anything, man. I'm just glad you could put aside your differences for a few hours, that's all. It's good to have friends."

Baird frowned down at his feet as they walked. "Yeah, I guess so." Truth was, Cole was the only person Baird could definitively call a friend. He tolerated a few other people, mostly members of Delta Squad, and had a sort of bland acceptance with the submarine crew and a couple Gorasni, but he wouldn't really call them "friends". Baird's many nemeses weren't openly hostile when Sharon was with him, probably because they wanted to look good in her eyes. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to try and get her on his side.

As they approached the open bay of the shop, Cole opened his mouth to add something, but was cut off by a clang and a very unladylike curse word from inside the metal building.

"Whoops," Cole said, raising his eyebrows. "Doesn't sound like a good time for me to stop in and chat."

"Oh, but it is for me?"

They approached the large building as cautiously as they had searched the base for Polyps.

"Frakking _useless_!" Sharon yelled. There was a thump like someone slamming a palm down on a wooden workbench.

Baird and Cole poked their heads around the edge of the garage bay door. Sharon had her back to them, her hands spread on a haphazard pile of papers. Baird's expert eye could see even from yards away that they were hand-drawn blueprints.

Sharon snatched one up. "Useless," she proclaimed, tossing it aside. She chose another one, gave it a once-over and pronounced it "Even more useless." A flick of her wrist sent it spinning to the floor to land with several others. Baird cocked his head to match the angle. It looked like some kind of super-cooling coil system. Sharon fished a third paper out of the pile. She held it in both hands for all of three seconds before shouting, "Frigging useless!" and began shredding it with her hands.

"Hey, whoa!" Baird dashed into the shop and wrested the scraps from her hands. The thought of _any_ of Sharon's ideas disappearing forever was horrifying. She tried to snatch them back, but he was much taller and simply held them up out of her reach. He fended her off with one hand when she tried to climb up on a stool to get them. "Whoa, whoa! Hang on now! What's gotten into you?"

"What's gotten into me? What's gotten into me?" Sharon's eyes were blazing and her chest was heaving with infuriated breaths. "I'll tell you what's gotten into me. Four robots. _Twenty_-four prototypes. Two _hundred_ and seventeen designs, and how many weapons have I got that would destroy a Leviathan? Or a wave of Polyps? Frakking _zero_, that's how many!" She gave up trying to get the scraps from Baird and grabbed fistfuls of the blueprints on the workbench. "Look at this, this, this ... crap!" She crumpled the sheaves in each hand so it looked like she was holding paper pom-poms. "Useless junk!" She used the pom-pom fists to sweep the rest of the designs off the workbench with a cry of frustration. "Nothing for Polyps! Not a goddamned thing!"

"Hey, hey, hey! Don't do that!" Baird looked around for Cole, but the big man had taken off. He didn't like to see ladies upset, and he probably thought after last night that Baird would be able to handle it.

Baird could do four-dimensional math and replace an entire drive train in less than an hour, but he didn't know how to stop Sharon from destroying her own work without touching her. There were too many blueprints in too many places for him to grab them all. She ripped up two more designs before he gave up and simply wrapped her in a bear hug from behind, pinning her arms to her sides.

"Hey, hey, stop! Stop it, Sharon. You don't want to ruin these, trust me on this!"

Sharon wriggled in his grasp, dropping the papers in her effort to get free. "Yes I do! They're crap!" She kicked and struggled, not hitting him, just trying to use her slight weight to break loose from his arms. "Steaming piles of crap! I think I'm sooo smart, don't I? But one unexpected thing comes along and what have I got to fight it? Nothing!" She kept yelling and thrashing for several minutes. It slowly occurred to him that although this section of the base was mostly junkyards and heavy machinery storage, someone wandering through might hear her. Baird kept his arms locked around Sharon and lifted her so he could walk backward to the garage door button and hit it with his elbow.

As the door chugged downward Sharon howled in frustration because she couldn't reach the blueprints even to kick at them. She gave a hard thrash, and the back of her skull hit Baird in the mouth, smashing his lips against his teeth. His head snapped back and he was blinded by a red flash of intense pain. He dropped her and stumbled sideways, stopping himself with one hand on a cabinet and the other clapped to his mouth.

When the ringing in his ears subsided, Sharon's hands were patting his face nervously and her voice was saying, "I'm so sorry, babe, I didn't mean to hurt you. Are you okay? Damon?" He tried to force his eyes open. Sharon's concerned face winked in and out of his vision. "Babe, look at me," she pleaded. "I'm so sorry, are you all right? Do you want me to get a medic?" Sharon pushed on his shoulders so he sat on the floor. Baird shook his head in the negative. None of the medics liked him; they'd probably applaud instead of giving him treatment.

After about a minute it stopped feeling like his face had been cracked open with a hammer. He wiggled his nose to make sure it wasn't broken. _'Nope, still handsome.'_ Baird opened his eyes and blinked the water out of them._ 'Not that there is anyone who appreciates my dashing good looks.' _Sharon's pretty face was very close to his own. _'Is there?' _he wondered, still dizzy from the jolt to his brain.

Baird ran a finger over his teeth, checking if any had been loosened. Probably not; the pain was already receding. Sharon was patting his shoulders worriedly, still asking motherly questions. "Do you want me to get you some ice? Painkillers? Should I radio Cole?"

He shook his head at each query. Finally assured he wasn't going to suffer any permanent damage, he got back on his feet with only a single wince. "I'm all right."

"Are you sure? Is there anything I can get you?" Sharon's hands were fiddling with the grooves and buckles on the front of his armor. "Do you feel dizzy? Do you want to lie down?"

"Uh-uh," he responded, rubbing his hand gently over his mouth. "There's only one thing I need."

"Yeah? What is it? I'll get it for you." Her hazel eyes were wide and golden.

He dropped his hand and pinned her with a glare. "I need you to stop destroying your designs."

"Oh." Her hands dropped away from his breastplate and she looked over her shoulder at the paper apocalypse. The shop floor looked like someone had thrown a book into an industrial fan. "That."

"Yes, that." He gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him. "I'm going to get some ice for my mouth, but only if you _promise_ to stop ripping up all your hard work." Sharon frowned at the black skull-and-gear emblem between his armor's seals. He gave her a tiny shake. "Sharon? That's what you can do for me, okay? Don't ruin your work." She gave him a sullen look from under her lashes. There were dark smudges under the inner corners of her eyes. "Promise me."

"Why?" She pouted like a kid being forced to clean up her room.

"Look, my mouth really hurts." He cut her off when she started to apologize again. "I'm going to go get my own ice. If you want to make it up to me, then don't destroy the blueprints. We'll talk about this when I get back. Okay?"

"Okay." Her destructive urge seemed to have passed. She sighed despondently as she began to gather up the papers. "Are you sure you don't want me to...?"

"No, I'll be fine." Sort of; he could feel where his upper teeth had shredded the delicate tissue on the inside of his lower lip. "Just don't rip up anything else while I'm gone. Promise."

"I promise." She scooped up a sheaf and tapped them into alignment. "I won't tear them up, or throw them away, or anything like that."

"Okay, good." He couldn't stop checking his teeth for looseness. "I'll be back soon, just ... just don't do anything either of us will regret, okay?"

"Okay. Promise." Sharon held up three fingers in the Scout's Honor gesture.

All the way to the mess freezer, he questioned why he was taking her word for it. 'Ungrateful' might be gone from her adjectives list, but 'untrustworthy' wasn't.

#

[1340 hours]

Sharon felt extremely foolish for her temper tantrum. In front of Damon, of all people. _'And then! Then I nearly bashed his teeth in! What on Sera's the matter with me?'_ She shook her head at herself, grumbling unhappily as she tried to piece together the schematic for a microwave tight-beam. "See?" she said to herself. "This. This could be it. With a little finesse and some directional binders, and we could cook the little bastards right in their shells! Why tear this up?"

"Who are you talking to?" came a metallic voice from the doorway. Sharon spun around with a squeak. "Oops, sorry," said the massive figure. Taking off the helmet proved it was Carmine. He scratched his nose, of course, then ruffled his hair into an even more adorably tousled arrangement. "Didn't mean to spook you." He shut the door behind him politely.

"It's all right. I was just talking to myself." She gestured to the mess on the workbench and admitted, "I kinda had a hissy fit. Embarrassing, huh?"

Carmine laughed. "Looks like Baird's finally rubbing off on you."

Sharon rubbed the back of her neck as she looked at her reverse-handiwork. "No, can't blame it on Damon. I'm just upset that I didn't have anything for a Leviathan or Polyps. Maybe ... maybe if I had, Connor and Ding-Dong wouldn't—"

Carmine set his helmet on top of her papers and rubbed her back with one large, warm hand. "You can't think like that." The circular motion reminded her of being comforted by her mother when she was little.

Sharon tried to shake it off. "I _can_ think like that. I have to. I can't just say, 'Oops, my bad, guess we'll get 'em next time.' People are _dead_, Clayton. People who were my friends."

"People die, Sharon," Carmine said quietly. His hand stilled on her back. "That's what happens when your enemies are bigger, stronger, faster, and there are more of them: people die."

She turned to face him, properly chastened. "I'm sorry, Clay, I forgot about your brothers."

"And my dad," he said. "And my sisters. And my grandparents, and my uncles, and my aunts, and all of my cousins, and everyone I ever knew before E-Day except my mom and my brother Daniel." His large hands squeezed her shoulders. "People die, all right? They just do. I can't think about them during a firefight, and I can't blame myself, or I freeze up. And you, missy—" he flicked her nose playfully. "You can't think it was your fault, or you'll stop hitting _your_ targets."

"But I should have—"

"Sharon, look at me." He tipped her chin up so she had to look into his hypnotic, liquid brown eyes. "If you'd known, you would have had something ready. You didn't know, so you didn't have anything. Next time you will. It's that simple, all right?"

"Uh-huh." It was surprising how just that little contact and a few soft words made her feel relaxed, and safe, and like everything was going to be all right. He smelled really good, too.

She could see why Carmine was so popular with the breeding program.

#

[1400 hours]

When Baird came back from icing his face—no obvious bruising was developing—the door to the shop was closed. He had to wipe his ice-wet hand on his fatigues before it was dry enough to turn the knob. Sharon wasn't in sight, so he started calling her name as he pulled the door shut behind him.

There were strange rhythmic squeaks coming from somewhere in the shop. Puzzled, Baird stopped and listened closely. The floor dropped out from beneath him when he identified the noise.

It was muffled and distant, but definitely the sound of a man and woman in the final throes of passion. His eyes snapped to Sharon's empty workstation. There was a very distinctive helmet resting on her torn schematics.

He looked up at the office-turned-bedroom on the second story. The voices were definitely coming from up there.

'_Carmine is here,'_ Baird realized_. 'Carmine is in here frakking Sharon. He's frakking Sharon in _MY BED_.'_

Baird discovered the Boltok was already out of its holster and clenched in his shaking hand. _'I'll kill him. I'll kill them both.'_ But even trembling with rage he had to admit that last part would never happen. _'Fine, then. I'll kill him and make her watch.'_

He considered running up there and catching them in the act, but decided he didn't want that image burned into his brain for the rest of his life, so he sat crosswise on the couch where he could see the bottom flight of steps. He cocked the pistol and rested it on his knee with the barrel pointing at the stairs. Baird turned the table lamp off so the couch was in shadow. Now the only light in the shop was natural, coming in from the high windows and falling on the staircase. If Sharon was the first down the stairs he didn't want her to see him and warn Carmine before Baird had a chance to splatter his brains all over the wall.

Sitting there and listening to them finish was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. Her cries got more and more desperate, alternating with Carmine's so it started sounding like they were trying to out-moan each other. When she shrieked at climax, Baird very nearly emptied the clip into the bedroom wall.

A few minutes later he heard the thump of combat boots being put on with a lot of giggling and pauses that were probably kissing. His hand clenched the pistol so hard that the cross-hatch pattern on the grip cut into his palm. When he heard the door open, Baird flicked off the safety with his thumb and raised the pistol in a two-handed grip.

Carmine got to the middlelanding first and looked back up the top flight with a lazy post-coital smile on his face. "Come on, sweet thing," he said as Baird was following the movement of his head with the Boltok's sights. "I gotta get out of here before he comes back." Just as Baird was pulling the trigger, the woman stepped down into a beam of sunlight that lit up her salt-and-pepper mohawk.

Baird pulled the shot wide and it punched through the metal wall less than a foot to Carmine's right. The flat _bang_ of the discharging pistol was amplified in the enclosed space, sounding like someone striking a dumpster with a sledgehammer. Carmine ducked, covering his ears. The definitely-not-Sharon woman shrieked and scrambled back up the stairs.

Baird did the only thing he could; he lied like a bandit. "Holy shit, Carmine!" He jumped up and flipped on the table lamp.

"Baird?" Carmine stood up hesitantly. "What the hell did you do that for?"

"Dammit, Carmine, I thought you were Stranded sneaking in here to steal my stuff!"

"Uh..." Carmine looked around awkwardly. "I'm not stealing your stuff."

"What were you doing in here, then?" It took Baird two or three tries to holster his pistol because of his hand trembling from the adrenaline. "Who the hell is that woman?" He already recognized her as the middle-aged Gear with the nice legs.

"Um ... she's my girlfriend, Alissa."

Baird feigned outrage. "Why would you—wait, you brought one of your girlfriends in here to have sex in my shop? In_ my bed?"_

"Well..."

"Carmine, you sick frak! That's disgusting! Now I'm going to have to burn those sheets. Maybe the whole damn mattress!"

"Look, I'm sorry, man, we just wanted some privacy, and the shop was empty, so..."

Baird heard Sharon's voice behind him. "What's going on in here?" He turned around. Sharon was standing in the doorway with a box of copper wiring in her arms. "What was that noise?" Lots of loud metallic bangs came from the shop; the patrol probably wouldn't even come check.

Carmine pointed a shaky finger at Baird. "He almost shot me!" He indicated the hole in the sheet metal wall like a school kid blaming a fellow conspirator. "See? That could have been my head!"

"What?" Sharon looked as stunned as if she'd just walked in on Marcus and Anya having a pillow fight. "Why would he do that?" Her eyes tracked up and to the right. "Is that you, Al?"

Nice-Legs-Mohawk straightened indignantly. "My name is _Alissa_."

"Carmine brought one of his bimbos in here to screw her in my bed." Baird said it loudly to mask the fact that his voice was shaking.

Sharon looked like she'd just eaten a lemon slice. "Ew! Carmine!"

"I'm sorry!" Carmine pleaded.

"I leave you to watch the shop for _ten minutes_, and look what happens." Sharon shook her head in disbelief.

Carmine tried again. "I can explain. You see—" Carmine held out his hand to Al, who stepped down into his arms. "Alissa came by to tell me she's pregnant." Carmine beamed at her, patting her stomach proudly. "The celebration got a little frisky, that's all."

"Oh!" Sharon exclaimed. "Congratu—"

Baird cut her off. "So you decided to 'celebrate' all over my clean sheets?"

Carmine rolled his eyes, pretty damn flippant for a guy who'd nearly had his skull ventilated. "We just got carried away, all right? I didn't _plan_ this."

Sharon held up a hand, balancing the box on her other arm. "First of all: congratulations! You're going to be a dad!" Carmine and Alissa hugged each other with sickeningly sweet smiles. "Secondly: Damon, why did you try to shoot him? It's gross to use someone else's bed but it's not really firing-squad material."

"It was dark in here and I thought they were Stranded trying to steal supplies. I pulled the shot wide when they stepped into the light."

Sharon nodded. "I probably would have fired a warning shot, too."

"Awfully close for a warning shot," Carmine grumbled. "Come on, Alissa." He took Ms. Mohawk's hand. "Let's get out of here before Baird mistakes us for Grubs." Alissa made sure to stay between Carmine and Baird as the couple high-tailed it out of the workshop.

Sharon put the box of wire down on her desk. "Oh, Carmine forgot his helmet," she noted.

The door cracked open again and Carmine's hand poked through and made a _gimme_ motion. Sharon laughed and took the helmet over, but she held on to it as she placed it in his hand. "Don't let me ever catch you defiling this shop again, or Damon will be the least of your worries, understood?"

"Understood." The hand and the helmet disappeared.

"Well, _that_ was interesting. Good thing loud noises come out of this shop all the time, or we'd have MPs crawling all over the place. Kind of amazing that Carmine got an infertile female Gear preggers, huh?" She started sorting through the various gauges of wire. "Damon, do you want the six millimeter or the four millimeter?"

"Four." Baird turned slightly away from her and swallowed hard with his eyes closed. _'God. This is the second time I've almost killed someone out of combat. What the hell is wrong with me?' _

It was disturbing to find there was a murderer lurking so close under the surface. Baird had never really thought of himself as a bad person. He had no illusions about being jackass and a know-it-all, but not a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Maybe he really _was_ a menace to society like Sam was always saying. Maybe he should just confess it all to Hoffman and get himself locked up as a preemptive strike.

'_Or maybe you're in love with her again,'_ whispered a calm inner voice.

"Oh, God damn it," he said out loud, putting his elbows on the workbench and his head in his hands.

Baird jumped when he felt Sharon's hand touch his shoulder. "Damon, are you okay?" Her beautiful face was too close. Kissing her seemed like both the right thing to do and the most terrifying dare ever concocted.

Now that the mental block was gone, there was no denying how he felt about her. His mind's eye outlined her with a faint shimmer and everything near her was richer for it, like she had an invisible Midas touch. He felt both better and worse with her close to him, like he was illuminated from the front but cast a darker shadow behind. He wanted to hold her and hear her say his name like she used to, but he also wanted to hide somewhere dark and quiet where she couldn't find him.

"Uh, no, actually. I'm a little shaken up." One hundred percent true. "I think I'm going to go see Cole for a bit. Hold down the fort for me?"

"Sure, Damon." Her forehead was wrinkled with concern. "I can do that. Let me know if there's anything you need."

He literally had to bite his tongue to keep from telling her what he needed. So he just nodded until the compulsion had passed. "Uh-huh. See you later."

"Okay. Say hi to Cole for me?"

"All right." He got out of there as fast as he could. "Shit," he cursed as he jogged away, hardly caring where he went. "Shit, shit, _shit!"_

'_This is a frigging disaster.'_

**# # #**

**I sat down to put the finishing touches on this chapter and it doubled in size! Sorry for the delay, but you get twice the bang for your buck. Minor editing later; I'm too tired right now, but I promised I'd publish. :)  
**


	87. 1 year 22 weeks before E-Day: 1950 Baird

1 YEAR, 22 WEEKS before E-DAY

[Pride of the West Marina, Halvo Bay: 1950 hours]

"Wait, wait, wait," James said. "Your dad bought _another_ yacht?"

"Catamaran," Sharon clarified. "But yes, he bought another boat." She was looking over her shoulder to talk to James and his date Katie as the four of them trooped down the pier, with Damon steering her around white splatters of bird droppings by the arm he had around her waist. _'Don't they ever wash these planks?' _he grumbled to himself. At this rate Sharon would get bird feces on the soles of her shoes, and that was completely unacceptable.

"How many does he have?" Katie asked.

"Counting this one? Seventeen."

Damon wasn't looking at James's date, but he could tell when her jaw dropped. "Seventeen? Whoa, and I thought _my_ dad spent a lot of money."

"Yeah, he's kind of got a thing for ships. Sailboats, yachts, catamarans, speedboats, you name it."

"It's really an impressive collection," James said. "My family's only got one boat."

Damon snorted. "Only one, he says. But that 'only one' has an indoor tennis court."

"Squashball court," James corrected. "Much smaller."

"And a swimming pool. And a spa. And a movie theater. And it takes a crew of twenty to get the damn thing out of the harbor. Face it, Keller, you've got an oceangoing cruise ship, not 'only one' boat."

James took it in stride. "Hey, man, what's mine is yours. Any time you want to borrow my oceangoing cruise ship, just ask."

"A movie theater and a swimming pool? Really?" Katie grasped James's arm excitedly. "Why aren't we going on _that_ boat?"

Sharon stopped just short of another bird dropping. "Because," she said dreamily, looking farther down the pier. "Take a look at _her_."

They'd come to the last of the Markham's private berths and the newest addition to the family: the solar-powered mega-catamaran _River Song_.

She was a marvel of modern engineering. Her yacht-like cabin rested between two pontoons that connected to the main body with graceful arches that looked like the flying buttresses on a castle. She far outweighed the boats on either side, not just in size but in sheer technical beauty, and her glossy white hulls refracted the light of the setting sun so that it looked like she was painted a shimmering pale rose color.

"Oh, wow," Katie breathed.

Sharon grinned at her. "The _River Song_ is special. Sort of a self-gift for getting the contract to make microchips for the DRA's Orbital Technology Division."

Katie's jaw dropped again. "Your dad's making the targeting chips for the Hammer of Dawn?"

Sterling Markham's wallet may have leaked like a sieve, but his mind was watertight: he was a genius when it came to microchip technology, and half the supercomputers on Sera had brains that he'd personally soldered to a motherboard.

"Yup!" Sharon said proudly. Damon lifted her up and over the bird droppings with a move they'd learned in dance class. "Dad's the best person on Sera to get the Hammer up to pinpoint accuracy."

"The Innies won't know what hit 'em," James added.

"Technically they will, since we stole the prototype from them," Damon said sardonically. He wasn't really sure why he was in a grouchy mood tonight. "But where their orbital platforms would have been like swatting a fly with a frying pan, ours will be like an arrow hitting a bullseye."

"If the Innies know we have the Hammer almost ready, why aren't they surrendering already?"

"Because they're morons," Damon grumbled.

James shrugged, putting his arm around Katie's shoulder as they stood marveling at the _River Song's _curvaceous form. "They probably don't think we can make it hit a small target, and they know the COG wouldn't fry a whole city just to take out one munitions factory. Chairman Dalyell was very clear about minimizing collateral damage from the Hammer."

"I think they're still hoping to get Pelles to cede from the Union. Hard to convince them you're the good guys if you've recently flame-broiled a bunch of preschoolers," Damon said, mounting the steps built into the catamaran's stern and giving Sharon a hand up onto the rough-textured deck. He had a hair-raising mental flash of Sharon's high-heeled foot skidding on a slick boat deck and her precious head smashing into a metal railing. A greasy-feeling shudder ran down his back and he pulled Sharon close to his body when she was fully on board. Sharon dropped her smile for a moment and gave him that look that said she knew exactly what he was thinking, and adored him for his concern. Another, more pleasant shudder rippled down his spine.

"Mizz Sharone, is that you?" a heavily accented voice called from inside.

"Yes, Magda, it's me! We'll be there in just a moment!" Sharon answered. With obvious reluctance she peeled herself away from him and stepped to James's side. "Switch," Sharon reminded Katie. Damon took Katie's arm and James put his around Sharon's waist. Damon's hands twitched at that, but it was necessary to fool the servant on board the _River Song_.

'_As if I would ever date this flipping Barbie doll lookalike.'_ Damon was tired of pretending to the trio's parents that he had a thing for tall blondes, when it was really James's preference. And given that James changed girlfriends as often as he changed his shirt, the folks thought Damon dated an unending string of blonde bimbos. _'Okay, maybe this one's a little less bimbo than usual.'_ Katie was a zoology major at Octus Academy, just like James. He'd been dating her for over a month now—almost a record in James's love life—and besides acting like any new information was absolutely astonishing, she was kind of a nice girl. Less annoying than many others James had dated, at any rate.

The couples trooped inside to where Sharon's favorite kitchen maid, Magda, had laid out an impressive spread of cheese platters, sweet and savory tarts, sparkling juices and covered dishes that were probably a main course.

"Ooooh, this looks lovely, Magda!" Sharon gushed. The matronly servant beamed, clasping her hands politely in front of her. Sharon didn't usually coo over food, but she doted on Magda, a Vasgari political refugee who had defected to the COG to save her family from the UIR work camps. "And you remembered all my favorite cheeses!"

"I always remember, Mizz Sharone." The ever-placid Magda inclined her head demurely. Damon liked most of Sharon's servants because of the way they clearly adored her. Ironic that he got along with Sharon's staff so much better than the people who served his own household. But then, Magda wasn't a stone-cold bitch who looked the other way whenever Damon limped in to breakfast. Jocelin would never employ someone who couldn't be bribed to keep her mouth shut about human rights violations.

'_Damn, why am I so negative tonight?'_ he wondered_. 'There was nothing particularly stressful about today.' _In fact he should be happy because it was the first time in two weeks they'd been able to arrange a double date so Damon could be seen with Sharon in public.

"You've prepped everything so well, I think we can serve ourselves from here, right guys?" Of course Damon, James and Katie nodded in agreement with Sharon. "Why don't you take the rest of the night off, Magda? Go home and see the kiddos off to sleep?" Sharon often dismissed servants on date nights as soon as possible so she and Damon could act like a couple again.

"Thank you Mizz Sharone. I will do this immediately." Magda executed a perfect curtsey and gathered her things.

James saw Magda back to her car like a gentleman. Damon was happy to be ungentlemanly so he could have a few extra minutes cuddling with Sharon in the dining booth. He leaned up against the padded wall and stretched his legs out along the bench so Sharon could settle into his lap, curled up like a cat. They watched Katie dig into the fine food, content to sit and simply _be_ for a little while.

Damon realized why he was so grouchy that evening when he snuck a peek at Sharon's modest cleavage. He tensed up when he saw a glinting emerald necklace dangling there instead of the titanium pendant he hoped to present her with on his birthday. The blessed date couldn't come soon enough, but he also feared he wouldn't make the deadline to have the necklace forged in time to propose. He absolutely refused to buy her engagement jewelry with money from his parents, so instead of begging for a bigger allowance, he'd spent a year pinching the pennies he earned from fixing things for OATS students and faculty. It still wasn't quite enough. The problem was the trade-off of time spent with Sharon or working on DENIS versus time spent earning cash. Time with Sharon and their 'bot baby' almost always won out over earning money, so Damon's jewelry fund had been very slow-growing indeed.

It was a bit jarring when Katie mentioned DENIS right after Damon had that thought. James returned and sat next to her as she asked "Where's your cute little robot?" around a mouthful of sharp cheddar and thin crackers. Classiness wasn't always passed down effortlessly from the older generation.

"DENIS? He's stuck at home." Sharon frowned a little, and Damon smoothed out the wrinkle between her eyebrows with his thumb. She took his hand with a brief smile and held on to it. "His hover system is acting up. He has walking legs, but he prefers not to use them."

"It's a known issue with floating robots," James told Katie while he spread garlic butter on his bread roll. "The algorithms that adjust the 'anti-grav' to compensate for changes in air density and temperature get fragmented after a month or so of continuous use. And you can only defrag the code so many times before you have to do a complete wipe of the programming and start over."

"We're concerned that a clean install of the hover tech could take part of his personality with it," Damon added.

"Personality? How can a robot have a personality?" Katie asked, shoving another cracker into her maw.

James stopped in mid-buttering. Sharon's muscles went as tense as Damon's. Neither of them spoke because they were too well-mannered to say anything if they couldn't put it nicely.

Damon had no such social inhibitions.

"DENIS has as much personality as you do. If not more." He glared at her. Maybe she wasn't such a good fit for James after all.

Katie gave him a baffled scowl. "What do you mean, more? He's a robot; I'm a human being."

'_Barely,'_ Damon seethed. Katie was dangerously close to suffering the brunt of the bad temper he'd been wrestling with all day.

Sharon was still white-lipped and speechless, so James stepped in. "It's like this, Katie: you like dogs, right? You have some at home?" Katie nodded enthusiastically. Most zoology majors did have lots of pets. "Well, if you take a large sampling of dogs, you'll find some just have more 'personality' than others. Usually the ones who are house pets rather than yard dogs. They have more contact with humans, so they behave in ways that humans respond to favorably. Like any thinking animal, they try random things to see what reaction they get, and repeat the actions that get the most attention from their masters. Over time those actions develop into unique habits that have the approximation of a personality."

"Oh, I get it!" Katie chirped. "So DENIS has the robot equivalent of personality because of the patterns he's developed from interacting with the three of you."

"DENIS is more of a person than any dog," Damon said defensively, liking Katie less by the second. "Sharon put random variables in his base code to encourage the development of individuality."

"So you programmed him to be different."

"He _is_ different," Sharon finally put in. "He's developing all on his own now, without extra programming from us."

"Wait a minute, you're not trying to create an artificial intelligence, are you?" Katie's jaw dropped. It seemed to be her default expression for anything she hadn't already heard. "Because that's illegal. Very, _very_ illegal."

Damon and Sharon gave her matching glares.

James saved the day yet again. "A true AI is impossible. Nobody can create an actual mind out of nothing, just a very close approximation of one. Program a calculator with enough variables and appropriate responses, and it can have a conversation with you."

"DENIS is a _virtual_ intelligence, not an artificial intelligence," Sharon added. "He might act like an AI, but he isn't one." She squirmed slightly on Damon's lap. "He does have a real personality, though."

"If you say so," Katie allowed.

"We _do_ say so," Damon snapped. Katie gave him a weird look, like he was a crazy soapbox preacher she was trying to avoid on the street.

"Okay!" James stood up, rubbing his hands together excitedly. Clearly he was going to derail the conversation before it got any more heated. "Let's take this million dollar baby out on the ocean!"

"Careful, this boat costs more than my house." Sharon smiled gratefully at him.

"Will do, skipper." James saluted her jauntily, herding Katie toward the pilot house.

As soon as the door shut, Damon said, "Yeahhh, they're not going to last."

Sharon sighed, laying her head on his chest. "Dang. I was hoping it would work out. James can't enjoy being the third wheel all the time."

"Meh, I was pretty sure they'd break up anyhow."

She tilted her head to look up at him. "Why's that?"

"She's got man-hands."

"Man-hands?"

Damon held up his own in demonstration. "Hers are bigger and broader than mine _or_ James's. You didn't notice?"

"No, I don't pay that much attention to other girls' body parts."

"Yeah, me neither."

She giggled. "One of the many things I love about you. Do you really think he'd dump her because she has big hands?"

"Yeah, I do. James is way too picky. He always finds some tiny flaw he can't get over."

Sharon gave him her sad-puppy look. "Would you break up with me if I had man-hands?"

"Sugar, I wouldn't break up with you if you had a sex change. ... Please don't have a sex change."

Sharon threw back her head and laughed. "Not a chance. I have way too much fun being a girl." She crossed her legs and let one high heel dangle from her toes, swinging her leg back and forth. Damon's eyes followed the arc like it was a hypnotist's watch. He even felt his eyelids getting heavier. His future wife laughed again and pulled him close for a deep kiss.

He wasn't sure how long it was, but when they finally came up for air he was a little light-headed from oxygen deprivation.

Sharon rested her forehead against his jaw and sighed. "Only a year and two months to go."

"Yeah, 'only' like how the Kellers have 'only' one boat."

"Mm," she agreed in a wry tone. "I'm getting hungry."

"Allow me, Mizz Sharone." Sharon giggled at that. She leaned her head way back and opened her mouth like a bird. Damon dropped a couple of grapes in one at a time. Sharon fed him a few cheese slices in return.

"God, we're sickening, aren't we?" he said laughingly.

"Sweeter than a damn candy factory!" Sharon crowed.

The boat's twin screws started turning almost soundlessly. With the two outrigger pontoons, the catamaran was so wide that there was barely any noticeable wave action at all; the biggest clue that they were moving was a slight vibration. Damon tried to relax, eat some food and enjoy the majesty of being on one of the most advanced oceangoing vessels in the world.

The _River Song_ was 100 feet long, 50 feet wide and could fit up to 40 people inside. Her upper surface was covered in 550 square meters of solar panels, which meant she could run forever with no need to stop and refuel Imulsion-powered engines.

He liked that the boat was solar-powered because of his loose theory about Imulsion poisoning. The birth rate among nations using Imulsion as a primary power source had dropped dramatically in the last fifty years. It was becoming very rare for families to have more than two children, and the infertility rate was rising fast. At this rate there was a population crash looming on the horizon. That didn't bother Damon as much as the idea of not being able to have children with Sharon.

Damon only liked a select few of the children he knew, but he was confident he would love his own offspring, especially since Sharon would be their mother. Currently they were still in negotiations on exactly how many kids they'd have. Sharon had been discreetly tested and the doctor had pronounced her "notably fertile". She figured they could balance work and family if they restricted themselves to three. Damon was torn; he wanted to raise as many little Sharons as possible, but hated the idea of his children being parented by paid help like he had been.

'_Damn it, why can't we get married right __now__?'_ he fumed for the umpteenth time. His seventeenth birthday wasn't for another two months, and even then they'd have to wait a whole additional year._ 'Frigging underage marriage laws. In the Silver Era people got married at thirteen or fourteen!'_ He'd known he wanted to marry Sharon since they were ten years old, so waiting until after high school was becoming intolerable. Every time someone called her a Markham, he wanted to shake them until their teeth rattled. Plus the sooner they got married, the sooner they'd stop having to pretend Sharon was dating James.

Speaking of James, slightly raised voices became audible through the intervening fiberglass wall.

"Oh-oh," Sharon said. She made her _Awkward! _face. "I think the breaking-up has commenced."

Damon flapped a dismissive hand. "He'll be all right. Somehow they never stay mad at him. You've noticed he's still on really good terms with all his exes."

"Yeah, I guess I have noticed that. How does he do that, anyway? I'd be spitting nails for years if you broke up with me."

Damon held up a finger. "Firstly, that's never going to happen. Not even a possibility. Secondly, I think it helps that James never sleeps with his girlfriends. Makes it easier to detach."

"Except for that first one, Trina."

"Oh, man, I almost forgot about that! God, that was a frigging disaster."

"I really thought she was going to set fire to his car or something, she was so mad. But you're right; he did sleep with her, so maybe that's why she was so upset."

"Well, I guess he learned his lesson, because he hasn't done that again."

Sharon wriggled down deeper into Damon's lap, which he very much enjoyed. She giggled when she realized just _how_ very much he was enjoying it. "Have you learned _your_ lesson, sugar?"

"What, you mean 'Sharon will do anything for a couple of grapes'_? _That lesson?" Sharon pinched him where his love handles would be, if he had any spare fat at all. "Ow! You vicious wench!" Damon turned his face away dramatically and snubbed her with an open palm. "That's it; we're through."

Sharon squirmed around to straddle him for a better attacking position. "Well, in that case...!" She pinched him under the arms, on the tops of his thighs, the side of his neck, anywhere that his hands weren't currently blocking.

"Ow! Ow, ow!" he complained between laughs. "Fine! Fine, I give up, we're back together!"

Sharon stopped, giggling breathlessly. "Well, that was a very brief break-up."

"What can I say: I can't stay mad at you."

Sharon remained straddling his lap. She held his face in her hands and kissed him sweetly. "Mmm. Same here." She sat back, still caressing his face. "A year and two months," she promised softly. "That's all the longer we have to wait."

"A year and two months," he recited back to her.

"You gonna buy me a multi-million-dollar catamaran when we're married?" she joked.

"I think it'll be a little out of our budget. How about a dingy?"

"If it's got a glass bottom so we can watch the little fishies swim around underneath us, you've got a deal."

"Deal," he agreed.

"Deal." Another of their call-and-response sets. She kissed him again. "Still hungry?"

He ran his hands up and down her thighs and gave her a lewd grin. "Famished."

"Good, because we've got plenty of ... _these!"_

They had another pinching war after Sharon smashed the bread roll into his face.

**# # #**

**A big bear hug from Cole if you spotted the bit from Doctor Who.**

**Once again, this needs some polishing, but I haven't published in a while and you deserve something to read. **

**The Kellers' catamaran is based on the **_**MS Turanor PlanetSolar.**_

_******[edit] Extra hugs for Dragonlady, who caught the Seinfeld reference without any hints!**_


	88. E-Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 1430 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base: 1430 hours]

Baird burst through the double doors of the dilapidated basketball court shouting, "Everybody out except Cole!"

The pre-teen boys Cole was teaching the finer points of Thrashball scattered like leaves in the wind. Baird rarely used his _I outrank you_ voice*, but when he did it was impressive. He nearly hit the last kid in the butt with the heavy gym doors when he slammed them shut. Baird whirled around and put his back to the door, arms spread like he was holding them closed against a pair of tag-team Berserkers. His blue eyes were almost as wide and round as the goggles directly above them.

Cole sat down in an out-of-place rocking chair he'd rescued from a scrap pile and glued back together. It was best to be nonchalant when Baird was in this state. "What up, Baird?" He spun the round Thrashball on the tips of his index and middle fingers.

Baird opened and closed his mouth several times before he could get the words out. "I almost killed Carmine!"

Cole popped up out of his rocking chair. The Thrashball dropped out of his grasp and bounced away across the floor like it was trying to avoid the conversation. "You almost _what?_"

Baird took a deep, trying-to-be-calm breath, pressing his knuckles against his temples. "I left Sharon in the shop," he explained with his eyes closed, "and when I came back I heard a couple having sex in my bedroom upstairs. Carmine's helmet was on Sharon's workbench. Anybody would have connected the same dots that I did."

"Skip to the part where you almost killed him," Cole insisted. He didn't believe for a second Sharon had gotten busy with Clay.

Baird started pacing the length of the basketball court. "I lost it. Just like with James, I went completely overboard with the whole jealousy thing, and all I could think about was killing him. Killing him _in front of her_, Cole, when she'd just watched Connor and Ding-Dong and JEEB die. When I knew she'd seen James blow up right in front of her."

"She was _there?_" Cole almost couldn't deal with all this drama.

"Yeah, she was there. She told me last night. The son of a bitch." Baird was pulling at his hair so much that the blond spikes made it look like an albino porcupine had taken up residence on the top of his head. "It was almost killing Carmine that ... made me realize I don't hate her. The opposite, actually."

"Son, I think you need to talk to her. ... Maybe leave out the attempted-murder part." Cole tried to think of a way to calm Baird down. "Besides, it would have been a crime of passion."

"Don't make excuses for me, Cole, I almost killed somebody! Crime of passion, my ass. Carmine would still be dead, if I hadn't seen that the woman wasn't Sharon. I pulled the trigger!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You actually shot at him?"

"Yeah, Cole! I did! I put a hole in the frakking wall! I saw the woman just in time to make the shot go wide."

"Okay, okay." He thought quickly. "But wouldn't Carmine's mag field have deflected it anyway? You had to know that."

"He wasn't wearing it. He's been using Nash's set while Sharon's retrofitting his armor with the life-vest upgrade." Baird waved a distracted hand, still pacing. "He wants to keep that breastplate because Daniel decorated it with all that junk about practicing reloading and keeping your head down. You know, because of what happened to Anthony and Benjamin. Sentimental value. That's probably why Carmine was at the shop; he gave Nash back his plates and came by to check on Sharon's progress."

"Well, it doesn't surprise me that it wasn't Sharon upstairs with Carmine. I told you he's not her type." Cole retrieved the Thrashball from the corner where it had come to rest. "I'm also not surprised you're still in love with her. Hell, I figured it out weeks ago."

Baird stopped short near a stool and scuffed folding table that had probably been a gym teacher's desk. "You knew? Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Boy, I tried to tell you that you _like_ her and you wouldn't hear it. It wouldn't have gone over much better if I'd used the L-word."

"Like and love are totally different things. Especially in this case."

"So you'll admit it!" Cole's day was getting better and better: first, they got the rest of the Polyps; second, he got to teach some adorable children how to be awesome at Thrashball; and third, Baird was getting back together with Sharon. Things couldn't be more perfect. "You're still in love with her."

"Still? Again? ... Some more? Hell, I don't know. I don't know!" He pulled at his porcupine hair again.

"Why aren't you happy about this? We should be celebrating!" He had a nice mental picture of the three of them toasting at the sergeant's mess. Maybe Sam could come too.

"No we _shouldn't_!" Baird bellowed.

That burst Cole's bubble right quick. "Why not?"

"Because, Cole! Ten years, that's why! It's been ten years since James died and she _never came looking for me_!"

Cole couldn't think of anything to say. It did look bad, her not coming to find him for almost a decade. And even then it seemed like she hadn't expected to see him alive. Maybe that was something Baird should know.

"She told me she thought you were dead."

"Bullshit! It wouldn't have been hard to find out. She's got a robot that can crack anything except the most secure servers. All she'd have to do is get DENIS within fifty feet of any COG officer's laptop and download the active duty rosters. I've talked to other nomads; I know that they crossed paths with Gear platoons plenty of times, but they stayed out in the wilderness looking for other wanderers. She had plenty of opportunity to find out if I was dead or alive, she just didn't take it. The only damned reasons the nomads back to the COG was that Maria wasn't getting any better, that one guy has a heart condition, and they'd stopped finding people out there."

"But aside from that, how do you feel about her now?"

"She's the same woman she always was. She's as incredible and smart and beautiful and wonderful as always ... and she never came looking for me." Baird plopped down on the stool and thumped his head on his arms, folded on the table. "I shouldn't have kicked him in the head," he groaned.

Cole had to agree that was a bad move on Baird's part, but right now wasn't the time to say so.

He heard Mathieson's voice in his tac/com. "Private Cole, come in."

'_Saved by the bell,'_ he thought. "Cole here, go ahead."

If Cole's mind hadn't already been blown by Baird's confessions, what Mathieson said would have made it explode.

"Marcus _what_?" Cole listened with his mouth open. "How many dead? ... Shit!" Cole blurted in response to Mathieson's astonishing reply. His Lancer was in the supply closet, well out of the reach of curious pre-teens. He fumbled for it in the dark while Mathieson filled him in. Cole kept the tac/com button pressed down with one hand, ramming the push-bar on the external door with his forearm, and shouldered his way out into the sunlight. "Medics on their way? Good, we'll meet them there."

"What's going on?" Baird asked, finally getting his own tac/com untangled from the bits of wire and string in his pocket and shoving it into his ear. The general channels were crammed with overlapping, panicking voices.

Cole couldn't put anything into words except, "Someone tried to kill Marcus."

**# # #**

***In one of the books it's clearly stated that Baird doesn't enjoy being in charge.**


	89. E-Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 1425 Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Vectes Naval Base: 1425 hours]

Marcus was walking the northeast perimeter with Rookie, trying to keep the dog busy. Work was the best thing for him right now. Today was the first time Marcus had had to keep the dog on a leash so he wouldn't charge after the Polyps they'd found. Maybe the bloodhound had scented traces of Polyp on Connor and Ding-Dong's bodies and put two and two together.

They were searching along the outside of the concrete wall in this quadrant because Marcus thought he had heard the distant report of a gunshot about a half hour earlier. Could just have been a Packhorse backfiring or a dumpster's heavy metal lid slamming shut, but it couldn't hurt to double-check. Besides, he needed to keep moving just as much as Rookie did. Marcus had a feeling Hoffman was going to announce at the 1500 meeting that Anya's detachment of Gears would be returning to base because Pelruan couldn't withstand another attack. He felt both relief and something more like anxiety.

He wanted very much to have her close by, where he could look out for her. He'd come dangerously close to desertion during yesterday's battle. Since his unscheduled release from The Slab, Marcus had done his best to make up for decking Hoffman and leaving his post to go on a personal mission that eventually cost one thousand five hundred and fifty-seven men their lives. His lapse of judgment last night stripped away any pretense of devotion to the COG that he had re-constructed since then. The overwhelming need to protect Anya had superseded his duty, his loyalty, and his honor. Nothing had mattered but getting to her. Apparently breaking up with her hadn't changed a damn thing on his end.

For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why Hoffman hadn't clapped him in irons as soon as the battle was done. Maybe the old man really _had_ been tempted to do the same for Bernie, just as he'd claimed. And he was right: Anya and Bernie would have been royally pissed off if anyone had shown up to "rescue" them. Over the years Marcus had seen flashes of Helena's fierce spirit flare up in Anya's eyes. He almost felt sorry for the Glowies that had dared to attack her post.

Marcus led Rookie to a shady copse of trees that backed up to the northeast fence. The dog shoved his nose in the fallen leaves and dug a furrow as he sniffed the ground underneath them, reminding Marcus of a farmer plowing a field. "Good dog," he encouraged the hound. "Keep at it." Rookie wagged his tail briefly but kept right on vacuuming up scents. The dog's spirits flagged immediately if he wasn't focused on working, as if that gave him too much time to think about what he'd lost. Marcus was beginning to understand why bloodhound handlers tended to personify their dogs. The loyal canines had much more in common with humans than he'd originally thought.

Rookie stopped abruptly and looked back over his shoulder, making that almost-inaudible whine which meant he wanted a bathroom break.

"Go ahead," Marcus told him, flicking his fingers in dismissal. "Do your thing."

Rookie pranced off in search of a suitable area to relieve himself, leaving Marcus with nothing to do but wait.

He tried to keep his mind perfectly blank, the way his old meditation tutor had taught him to do, but soon realized he wasn't casually looking off into the distance as he'd intended, but facing toward Pelruan. He seemed to do that a lot these days, like a compass needle swinging around to point at the magnetic pole. That hadn't changed since the break-up either.

Had she changed? The boldness with which she'd called him out had been completely unexpected, as had the decisive way that she'd turned and marched away. Her behavior had been commanding, and he had to admit, extremely attractive. Watching her stride away, he'd felt the first of many pangs of regret at losing such a remarkable woman.

Gossip spreads like wildfire on a military base, especially when it involves fraternization between the ranks with beautiful female officers. Everyone on the island probably knew Anya was single now, including the men in her detachment. They'd all be making a play for her in one way or another, knowing she wasn't averse to dating enlisted. When Marcus had formed his plan, he hadn't counted on Anya being reassigned before he could steer her in Cole's direction. Now he had no opportunity to finesse her into a relationship with Cole, who he knew would treat her with the care and respect she deserved. There were probably a dozen young Gears panting after her in Pelruan right now, and Marcus wasn't there to beat the shit out of them. If one of those punks had touched her, including Drew Rossi (not a bad guy, but definitely a watered-down version of Carmine), even so much as wound one of her spun-gold tresses around his finger, Marcus was going to reach right down his throat and yank out—

Rookie growled.

Marcus's guts clenched tighter than the fist at his left side._ 'Shit!'_ he thought. _'I was only __thinking__ it!' _The dog stalked slowly toward him through the shadows, continuing that hair-raising growl and placing its feet as carefully as a lion stalking its prey. Until just now Marcus hadn't been sure the hound even knew how to make that noise_. 'Serves me right for letting my guard down,'_ Marcus thought as his fingers crept up his right leg toward the Snub pistol in his holster. _'God, I'm going to have to kill him.'_ Just like he did to the attack dog that'd ripped his face open in The Slab, except this time he had a weapon instead of his bare hands.

From the corner of his eye Marcus saw movement along the concrete wall to his left. He recognized Nash's armor, which had two wide diagonal stripes across the chest. Marcus kept an eye on Rookie's silhouette. It was spiky along the dog's haunches where it had raised its hair to make itself look bigger, reminding Marcus of a werewolf from one of Carlos's favorite graphic novels.

"Carmine," Marcus whispered, remembering that Nash and Clayton were sharing armor for a few days. "The dog's turned on me. Try calling it off or I'll have to shoot the frakking thing."

The Gear kept striding toward Marcus, saying nothing at all.

"Nash?" Maybe Carmine had given the kid back his plates. Nash's prosthetic jaws weren't a comfortable fit, so it was possible he wasn't wearing them right now.

Rookie was still inching forward through the shadows, but close enough to the sunlight that Marcus could see the white shapes of its long, long fangs. The growl turned abruptly into ferocious barking that showed all its teeth. The intake of breath between barks was almost as noisy, being drawn through the froth of saliva the beast had worked up. All Marcus could see of the dog was its spiky outline and the white-toothed maw snapping at him.

"Nash, what the frak are you waiting for? Shoot it." Marcus said through his gritted teeth, trying not to say it so loud it would startle the dog into attacking.

Too late. The hound bunched its legs to leap the last six feet between them.

Marcus would have got the gun up in time to put a round in Rookie's chest, but a human arm swooped in from behind him and chopped down hard on his right wrist. The blow instantly deadened his hand and the Snub fell from his limp fingers.

Marcus flung up his left hand just in time to get it between his throat and the garrote that dropped down over his head.

When Rookie jumped, Marcus's dilated eyes caught every detail, right down to the curved ridges on the dog's palate. Little spurts of blood splattered both of their faces when the hound's fangs sank deep into the forearm of Marcus's attacker.

The man trying to garrote Marcus screamed so loudly that it deafened Marcus in that ear.

Nash attacked from the side, sweeping a knife in a back-handed motion that laid open both Rookie's side and Marcus's raised forearm. It was such a clean slice that Marcus wouldn't have known he was cut except for the flow of warm blood.

The arm that had chopped Marcus's right wrist hadn't been armored, so Marcus took a chance and drove his elbow hard behind him, connecting with his opponent's solar plexus. The man stopped screaming and stumbled back, letting go of the wire.

Rookie whipped his whole body side to side, using all of his one hundred fifty pounds to maximize the tearing power of his jaws.

Marcus ripped his eyes away from the bloody spectacle before Nash could finish stabbing up into his side.

He realized it couldn't be Nash, or any other Gear, when the knife connected with the rubber webbing around Marcus's waist. A COG soldier would have known it was too thick to get a knife through.

Rookie squealed in pain.

Instinctively turning to look gave Marcus's attacker the opening to stab the knife downward with all his strength. Marcus was only able to deflect the knife enough to keep it away from his jugular. Instead it slammed straight down into the muscled space between his collarbone and right shoulder blade. It felt like being punched.

Marcus roared as the searing pain caught up with the stab wound. He turned and swung his left palm up with brutal force into the underside of the man's helmet. He felt his attacker's neck snap, the displaced vertebrae tearing the spinal cord away from the brain stem. The corpse fell forward against Marcus and he shoved it off to the side.

He leapt for the Snub like he was sliding into home base, rolled to face the man attacking his hound rather than waste time getting up, and put two rounds into the guy's shoulder. Rookie took a few shaky steps and collapsed. The man fell to his knees, shouting and clutching his shoulder. Marcus ran to them and kicked him in the back to send him sprawling facedown. He knelt beside Rookie, feeling for a pulse. The dog's heart was beating far too quickly and he was whimpering between quick, panting breaths. Blood flowed freely from several stab wounds in his chest and belly, and his eyes were glazing over.

Rookie's attacker scrambled to his feet and began a hunched-over, shuffling run.

Marcus aimed carefully and blew away the bastard's left kneecap.

If the man's squealing and screaming hadn't alerted the Gears already, Marcus pressed the talk button on his earpiece while staunching the blood from Rookie's worst wound with his other hand.

"Mathieson, we've been attacked. We're in grid reference—" Marcus sprinted into the dining room of his memory palace and snatched up the placemat that represented his memorized map of Vectes "Lambda 2-3-7. My dog's bleeding out. Get a medic out here on the double."

"Copy that, Fenix. Medics on their way. How many hostiles?"

"Two. One dead, one incapacitated."

"I copy one dead, one incapacitated. Be advised: there have been attempts on Colonel Hoffman and Major Reid as well. The Chairman has been secured."

"Status?"

"Hoffman killed his attacker; Major Reid is KIA. His assassin evaded capture."

"Check on Pelruan."

"Roger. Alerting Delta Squad as well."

It seemed like hours passed while Rookie's life leaked out under Marcus's hands. Three wounds were particularly deep. Marcus tied his bandana around the spurting wound on Rookie's front leg and pressed as hard as he dared against the one on the dog's side and the other between his sternum and shoulder. "Come on, Rook, stay with me," he exhorted the dog. "You can make it. Just hold on until the medic gets here."

After an eternity, a motorcycle roared up the narrow path along the concrete wall and stopped just short enough to avoid spraying them with dirt. The driver was a Gear who immediately put a boot in the garroter's back and the muzzle of his Lancer against the man's temple. The attacker dialed it down to a whimper.

The passenger was a combat medic who shoved Marcus aside and started working on the dog. "How long ago was he stabbed?"

"Two or three minutes," Marcus reported.

The medic spared him a glance. "You know you have a knife sticking out of your shoulder?"

"Yeah, I noticed that, Riggs."

He shrugged. "Some people don't feel wounds until well after the fact. Don't try taking it out yourself." His expert fingers packed Rookie's gashes with sterile cloth.

"Hadn't planned on it. It's a combat knife. Serrated on the top edge." Pulling it out himself would make the wound even worse.

The medic pressed his tac/com. "I need a cas-evac in Lambda 2-3-7 for a Tango-One casualty. Bloodhound, Rookie. Handler Fenix."

He heard the jangling of Delta Squad's gear long before they arrived on the scene.

Cole just stared. Even Baird was speechless for a moment.

"Well, shit, Marcus," Cole said.

"You know you have a knife sticking out of your shoulder?" Baird asked.

"You don't say," Marcus grumbled. The rubberized hilt brushed his ear whenever he turned his head. He jerked his chin at the dead man behind him. "That guy's wearing Nash's armor, but I don't think it's him. Baird, take a look. Cole, get someone to find Nash. Or his body."

The two got to work. A few minutes later, Hoffman jogged up, flanked by Carmine and Jace. "Good God Almighty," Hoffman panted. "What'd you do to piss these people off?"

"I heard you had a visitor too, Colonel."

"I sure as hell did." Hoffman did a double-take at the living prisoner. The guy was in too much pain to answer questions, but the colonel knelt next to him anyway. "Weird."

"What?" Jace asked.

"My attacker was blond, too."

Baird finished wrestling the helmet off the dead one. "So's this guy."

"Brothers?" Hoffman speculated out loud.

"I don't think so," Marcus said.

Everyone looked at him, even the medic. Marcus met Baird's eyes, and the corporal nodded grimly. They were thinking the same thing.

Marcus struggled to his feet and drew his own combat knife. He shuffled painfully over to the living assailant and motioned to the Gear to withdraw his foot. At a nod from Hoffman, the private obeyed. Marcus knelt and pulled the man's shirt taut, using the knife to slit the garment up the back. He laid it open, revealing a regular pattern of puckered inch-long slits on either side of the man's spine.

He looked back over his shoulder at Baird, who had done the same. The corpse had the same slits.

Marcus gave Hoffman a grave look and announced, "They're Chimeras."

**# # #**

**Chimeras appear in chapters 22 and 23. For those of you who've been reading the story since I started publishing, that is a looooong time ago.**


	90. E-Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 1440 Marcus

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Medical Center, Vectes Naval Base: 1440 hours]

Dom caught up to Marcus just as the group carrying the two stretchers arrived at the double doors to the emergency room.

"I'm really sorry it took me so long, Marcus; I had to find someone to watch Maria and ... do you know you have a kni—"

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock."

Dom let it slide on account of the dog.

Rookie looked bad. His eyes were rolled back, showing the pale pink membranes surrounding the eyeball, and he was panting shallowly. Not to mention the blood. The bandages were so dark with it that they blended into his brown fur.

"Who did this?" Anybody who'd hurt one of the bloodhounds had to be a real son of a bitch.

Marcus jerked his chin to indicate the stretcher behind them. Baird and Cole were carrying an unconscious blond man on it. "Locust chimera," he said.

Dom's mouth fell open. As the patients were shifted onto gurneys and wheeled toward the operating rooms, so many questions swirled in his mind that he couldn't voice them. '_How did they get here? Why did they attack us? Where are their symbiotes? Are there more of them? What do they want? ... Do they know anything about Maria?'_

Doc Hayman passed up Rookie's gurney in the hallway and went straight to examining the Chimera.

"Doctor," Marcus said in a low, controlled voice. "Rookie first."

She gave him a confused scowl while listening to the man's lungs with a stethoscope. "I beg your pardon?" she said unapologetically.

Marcus pointed to Rookie. "COG." Then to the Chimera. "Locust."

Hayman only halted for a moment. The Chimeras had been public knowledge for a few months, but no one expected to ever see one. "Still a human being," she insisted. "And we only have one of the two operating rooms available."

Hoffman stepped up. "I'm with Fenix on this one. Your interns can handle the prisoner while you work on Rookie."

"You're asking me to ignore a gravely wounded man in favor of somebody's pet."

"He's not a _pet_," Marcus growled menacingly. "He's a _soldier_."

Everyone around him froze in mid-motion as if the temperature had dropped a hundred degrees. To Dom it felt like they had been teleported back to Port Farrall, with icicles hanging off the eaves and frost crystallizing on the window panes.

Hayman gave Marcus her most authoritative scowl, and he stared back at her as unblinking and immovable as an ice sculpture. Instead of a pin dropping, they heard the _plop-plop_ of Rookie's blood dripping off the edge of the gurney. Her finely tuned physician-hearing drew her attention back to the dog. Just as she looked at him, a shiver ran along Rookie's flank and he whimpered unconsciously. Her shoulders lost their stubborn set and her face got that _Can't just stand by_ look that Dom had seen so often on battlefield medics. Even when it was hopeless.

The doctor said, "Jacobs, find out if there's a veterinarian on base. Martinez, get his littermates in here and type their blood for a transfusion."

Marcus thawed, and Dom felt the same sense of relief as a man standing in front of a creaking glacier that had decided not to calve a fifty-ton block onto his head.

Hayman gave Marcus another firm look. "I'm not doing this as a favor to you, Sergeant."

"I didn't ask you to."

"It's because he's a Gear injured in the line of duty."

"Of course."

One of the two small operating rooms was hastily prepped for Rookie, while in the trauma lobby a trio of interns went to work staunching the blood flow from the Chimera's two bullet wounds and shattered knee.

Marcus let himself be herded into an exam room on the condition that the door was left open so he could see into the glass-walled operating room. Vaughn, that male nurse Baird disliked so much, made Marcus sit on a gurney. Dom helped Marcus remove his chest piece, and Vaughn forced the stab wound open wider with a pair of forceps. "Santiago." The nurse nodded at the wound. "You're familiar with combat knives. See if you can get this out."

"Sure thing." Dom angled the knife and pulled gently. He had to draw the sharp edge against the wound, making the cut a little longer, but it kept the serrated edge from shredding the muscle fibers on the opposite end. "Got it," he said, holding the knife for Marcus and Vaughn to see. It had been jammed four inches down into the slope of Marcus's shoulder. He really was lucky he was so muscular.

Vaughn glanced at the knife like it was a dipstick for blood instead of oil, then peered into the wound again. "Lucky," he said. "If you had any less trapezius muscle, that knife would have done some real internal damage." Marcus grunted neutrally. "As it is, if you don't aggravate the wound it'll heal completely in a few weeks."

"You sure?" Dom thought the wound was pretty deep.

"Trust me. I've treated an average of fifty wounds a week for the past fifteen years." Riggs blotted Marcus's shoulder clean. There was very little blood because he hadn't tried to pull the knife out himself.

Dom did the math. "Thirty thousand wounds. Wow."

Riggs nodded. "Uh-huh. So when I say this one is about as life-threatening as a paper cut, you can believe it." He turned away to gather some more supplies from a drawer, and Dom saw the double doors open out of the corner of his eye. Marcus's spine stiffened.

Dom looked that direction and saw Helena Stroud follow Bernie into the med center.

'_What the – ? Can't be ...'_

Helena's nose bridge had had a slight bump where it had been broken in a bar fight. It was the straightness of this woman's nose that made Dom realize it was Anya. Well, that and how Helena had died at Aspho Fields.

'_She's the spitting image of her mother.'_

Armored, short-haired and sans makeup, the difference between Lieutenant Stroud and Major Stroud was negligible. Marcus stared at her like he'd seen a ghost.

Dom leaned close to his friend and murmured, "Careful, Marcus. Don't flex; she might throw herself at you and beg to be ravished."

"Shut up, Dom."

Marcus hoped his paleness and slight tremor would not be attributed to Anya's proximity, but the gallon of rubbing alcohol that Vaughn was pouring into his stab wound.

"Don't you need to save some of that for later?" Marcus said, drawing a sharp breath through his clenched teeth. Not only because the antiseptic stung like a son of a bitch, but also because he'd just discovered how it felt to be a recovering opium addict confronted with a brick of heroin.

"Nah," Vaughn said cheerily. "Dizzy makes it for us; we've got plenty." He dabbed away the excess liquid and began threading the curved suturing needle. "And very little antibiotics, so you won't get any of those unless you develop an infection."

She made the armor look like a fashion statement, and she was as luminously beautiful without makeup as she had been with it.

Bernie and Anya went to stand by Hoffman near the operating room. Marcus gripped the edge of the gurney with his hands to stop them from reaching out to her. Odds were that Dom and Riggs assumed it was because he was getting some very deep stitches.

The short haircut looked like a helmet made of hammered gold. He was so dazzled by the sight that it took him a few moments to realize, _'She cut it off. She cut it off and threw it away.'_ A wave of nausea rolled over him at the mental picture of Anya's sunlit locks in a heap of refuse along with things that were too old or broken to be recycled.

There was a certain finality to it, like it was Marcus himself who'd been severed from her and tossed in the trash.

Marcus closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose. _'This is what you intended,' _he reminded himself. _'You ended it so she could have a better life. This __is__ her better life.'_

When he was steady and clear again, he opened his eyes to look at her objectively.

She had a newly confident, commanding presence that Delta was already responding to. Hoffman would say something and Cole, Baird, Carmine and Jace would immediately turn to Anya for her reaction. Even Bernie was looking at her in a fascinated way. Probably because of the resemblance to her deceased friend Helena.

A small herd of happy-go-lucky bloodhounds stampeded through the double doors. One after another they stopped wagging their tails and began to look unsure of their surroundings. Their keen noses picked up the lingering scents of illness and death, even under the strong odor of antiseptic. A handler, Melinda something, soothed each of the eight dogs with gentle pats on the head. Their tails began to wag again, willing to trust her even with the smells of sickness all around them. A female nurse welcomed them into an exam room to have their blood cross-typed against Rookie's. Fortunately it was a room on the near side of Anya, so he wouldn't have to walk by her to get to it. He didn't trust himself to be so close to her.

Dom helped him replace his armor and Vaughn put his arm in a sling. "Don't use your arm for at least a week, or you'll end up with permanent scar tissue that will hamper your range of motion. We clear?"

"Clear. C'mon Dom, let's go see if they have a match yet." With effort, he kept his head from turning toward Anya, and crossed the hall to the room with the hounds.

The ones who weren't having blood drawn greeted Marcus and Dom enthusiastically, wagging their tails and entire bodies so much that it looked like there were twice the number of dogs in the room.

"How's it coming in here?" Dom asked politely.

"One second," a nurse said. She cocked her head to look lengthwise at the test tube dangling from her fingers. "Should see the first results right about ... bingo!" She turned to them triumphantly. "We have a winner. Mr. Wiggles, would you step on up?"

Marcus's tense shoulders dropped in relief. A match. A blood donor. Rookie might have a shot because of his cheerful brother with the ridiculous name.

"Keep cross-typing the rest," the nurse told her coworker. "I have a feeling he'll need more than a pint or two." Melinda held and soothed Mr. Wiggles while the nurse drew blood. A third staff member went to give Doc Hayman the good news. When Marcus followed to the operating room, Anya and Hoffman had moved down to the Chimera's location. Drawing close to Rookie's room, he saw a man overalls suiting up in the scrub room. Probably the vet.

With blood, a veterinarian and a surgeon, Rookie might make it. Marcus met Dom's eyes and could tell his friend knew what he was thinking. Dom gave him a great big grin, more than enough smile for both of them.

Bernie loved dogs and really wanted to stay and watch Rookie's surgery, but seeing the way Baird jumped when Sharon appeared at his side reminded her she had other obligations that were just as important.

It took a couple minutes to catch Cole's eye, and another couple to casually wander down the hall, supposedly to watch Rookie's littermates give blood.

Baird had his back to them as he talked to Sharon, so Cole was able to excuse himself from Carmine and Jace's conversation and slip over to Bernie. For a moment they stood quietly, taking in the barely-restrained chaos. It was touching that over a dozen people were working feverishly to save a dog's life, and it was an incredibly lucky break that Marcus was not only okay, but he'd captured a Locust leader alive. Anyone else would have just blown the man away.

"So," Bernie said wryly, "anything _else_ interesting happen while I was gone?"

Cole answered quietly, "Lessee ... Marcus dumped Anya; Connor, Ding-Dong and JEEB died; Sharon got very upset and cuddled with Baird all night; Carmine knocked up a Gear who was supposed to be un-knockable; Baird tried to kill him because he thought it was Sharon, and that made him realize he loves her." He thought for a moment. "Yeah, that's pretty much it."

When Bernie got her breath back, she whispered, "That is most definitely _not_ 'pretty much it'. Spill it, _now_, or so help me God, I'll—"

"Whoa, whoa," Cole whispered. He'd already considered holding out, but Delta's private news was so incredible that he was dying to tell someone. "It was just a little showmanship."

Bernie didn't look like she appreciated his flair for the dramatic. "Stow your showmanship and break the news before I break _you_."

Cole made patting motions at her. "Baby, I will if you stop threatening me." Bernie nodded in assent and calmed herself down a little. Pleased to have someone to share this unbelievable information with, Cole told her everything.

Bernie's plan had been to play it cool so any casual observers wouldn't think anything of their conversation, but by the time Cole had finished, her eyes were dry from not blinking and her jaw practically rested on the floor.

"Is that all?" she asked in a hoarse, squeaky voice.

"Yup." Cole looked very pleased with his story-telling abilities.

Bernie took a few minutes to process the information. Then she turned to Cole so suddenly that the big man jumped in surprise.

"I know just what to do," she declared. Her eyes narrowed deviously and Cole began to look worried. She gave him a grin that would put the Cheshire Cat to shame. "Yes, I know _exactly_ what to do."

**# # #**

**Cross-typing blood takes more than a couple minutes, but let's pretend it happens faster in the Gears universe, shall we?**


	91. E-Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 1520 Baird

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Medical Center, Vectes Naval Base: 1520 hours]

Anya and Bernie showed up just in time to get a mini briefing from Hoffman.

"They found Nash," the old man announced. "Alive, but tied to a chair in a supply closet. Scared the shit out of the clerk who found him."

"Why'd they let him live?" Jace wondered. "You'd think if they came here to kill people, they would have capped him too."

"Probably thought it'd be more demoralizing to us than finding him dead. Let me guess, they knocked him out and broke his prosthetic jaws?" Baird guessed.

"Yeah, that's right," Hoffman confirmed. He looked at Baird like he fully expected him to solve the mysteries of the universe. Baird could live with that.

"I bet they figured an unexpected freak show would be shocking to whoever found him—" most of his audience scowled, but it was true "—and traumatic for Nash to be seen without his helmet and prosthetic, not able to do a damn thing about it." There, that was more touchy-feely, wasn't it?

"Makes sense to me," Carmine said. "A man can get very fond of his brain-bucket." He patted the headgear tucked underneath his arm. He looked toward the room where Marcus was getting patched up, as if to reassure the sergeant that he was abiding by Delta's new rules regarding acceptable helmet usage. Marcus glowered anyway, and Carmine swallowed nervously. That must have been some chat they'd had.

That little non-verbal exchange drew the group's attention to their punctured hero. Only Anya didn't look. _'Wow, they really are broken up. He got knifed a couple minutes ago and she's not even giving him the time of day.'_ Anya's perfect face often reminded Baird of a department store mannequin, and the comparison was even more apt now that she had a Marcus-style blank expression and short hair that looked like yellow plastic.

"Riggs said he thinks it's minor," the Colonel reported. "Fenix is one tough son of a bitch."

'_Blah, blah, Prince Fenix, blah, blah.'_

"The dog's another story. Flickering in and out like a candle. They're keeping his blood pressure up with IV fluids, but he needs blood, and he needs it ten minutes ago."

Baird honestly hoped the pooch wouldn't die. The COG couldn't afford to lose another bloodhound, much less Rookie. And he didn't want Sharon to suffer another loss, not so soon after JEEB.

"What's the situation with Major Reid*? Mathieson said he was killed," Anya said in a voice that was firmer than her old Control dispatcher tones.

"Yep. Dead as a doornail when they found him. Strangled with a garrote, like they tried to do to Marcus."

"Why did they do it like that? Why not just shoot him?" Jace asked.

"Noisy," Baird said. "They wanted to get in and out before anybody knew they'd been there. Probably came ashore with the Stranded pirates yesterday and planned on leaving with the last of them this afternoon."

"Why didn't they go after the Chairman?" Jace was getting more inquisitive every day. Baird felt almost proud. Apparently his influence was doing some good.

"Heads of state are always prepared for assassination attempts. Prescott's got Lowe and Rivera for a reason. The Chimeras probably knew they couldn't get past the Chairman's guard dogs without making a scene."

"So the one who killed Reid is still out there?" asked Bernie. Granny sure had an eye for detail.

Hoffman looked like he wanted to oversee the Locust-manhunt personally. "Or ones. They may have sent two for Fenix because of the dog, and one for me because I was alone." He scowled. "Or maybe they just thought it'd only take one to snuff out an old man."

Bernie patted his arm. "Well, they were dead wrong, Vic. Literally." The Colonel looked mollified. Baird wasn't terribly happy that the old geezer was sharing a bed with Bernie, but at least he was less likely to blow a heart valve than he'd been before she reappeared. There wasn't anyone who could fill Hoffman's shoes, not even Marcus.

"Who's takin' over for the Major?" Cole asked. "Somebody else from Admin?" Nobody was going to shed a tear over Reid's passing; he liked to throw his weight around even more than Banfield did.

"Captain Tremain's next in chain of command."

"That chap's a bit off," Bernie said. "Never been right since the Locust captured him in the Hollow." Tremain hadn't been tortured, but that was because a squad of Gears boarded the barge and rescued him just in time. The rest of his men hadn't been so lucky; Tremain had been captive for almost twelve hours, listening to his men screaming and dying the whole time. But instead of turning into a quaking mess, the Captain seemed to have had all the fear scared out of him. _'Sure, it sounds like a good thing, but the man's got no sense of self-preservation.'_ Mortars, gunfire, Polyps exploding at his feet, nothing raised his blood pressure in the slightest. Baird had once seen the Captain standing smack in the middle of a battle, holding his Lancer like a shopping bag and looking at an approaching Boomer as if it were a waiter coming to take his breakfast order. That was the last time they'd put him on the front lines.

"He'll do fine," Anya said. Weirdly, once she said that, everyone's expressions went from doubtful to convinced. "Shuffling paperwork and crunching numbers is right up his alley these days."

"Right, well, I know most of us won't want to leave until Rookie's either out of the woods or—" Bernie scowled at her old man, who hastily amended: "—completely stable, so once we know he's all right there'll be a debriefing in my office."

They naturally broke up into two groups, according to their priorities: Bernie, Cole, Baird and Carmine watching Rookie's surgery from a respectful distance, and Hoffman, Anya and Jace moving down to the trauma lobby to get a closer look at the failed assassin.

Sam and Bitchy Brand had been left at Pelruan to hold down the fort. _'Dangerous, leaving two fire-breathing dragons in charge of a bunch of wooden buildings.'_

Since they didn't need treatment, the two dead ones and Reid's corpse were being examined _in situ_ by the MPs, recording evidence for later. Baird definitely wanted to be in on the autopsies. He had a hundred questions about how their physiology adapted to the symbiotes.

It didn't sound like Nash had been injured, so he'd probably be hiding out in his quarters instead of coming to the hospital. Baird understood that. It must have been a million times worse than someone walking in on you naked.

The only woman who'd ever seen Baird naked appeared at his side like she'd hopped through a rift in the space-time continuum.

"Jeez!" he almost yelled. "Don't sneak up on me like that." Ten years of hiding from the Grubs had made her stealthier than a chameleon.

"Sorry," she said distractedly, standing on her toes to peek around the medical staff working on the dog. She had that modified sniper rifle strapped to her back. The gun was all well and good, but Baird would rather she hunker down inside an armored tank until they caught the rest of the Chimeras. "How's Rookie?" Sharon asked, turning to him.

Baird fixed his gaze high on the bridge of her nose. There hadn't been time to prepare any mental barriers against her, so if he looked her in the eye she would know instantly. He might as well write _I LOVE YOU _across his forehead in permanent marker.

"It's not good," he reluctantly told her. "I'm sorry."

He was free to look at her lovely profile when she turned her head back to the operating room. "Shit," she said with a depressed sigh. "Double shit."

Baird turned so his body shielded her from everyone else. "Don't give up just yet," he said. "A bloodhound parade came in a few minutes ago. One of them's got to be a match."

Sharon perked up. Ironically, that made him feel more like a hero than anything he'd done during the Lightmass Offensive, the Landown Assault and Hollow Storm. "A blood donor!" she said delightedly. "That's brilliant! ... Why didn't I think of that?" He knew she didn't mean that as a matter of pride, just curiosity.

"You've been through a lot in the past twenty-six hours," he said. "That's enough to make anybody miss a beat."

Her gaze swung back to Rookie, the expression on her beautiful face melting again into sorrow. "Yeah."

'_Shit. Why did I remind her?'_ he scolded himself. _'I've really got to learn to think before I speak.'_ That was a rusty old skill he hadn't used in a long, long time.

Trying to undo the damage, he put his hand on her shoulder. The effect on him was like grabbing a live power line. Electric bolts shot up his arm and across his chest, and his muscles tightened so that he couldn't let go.

Sharon laid her cheek on the back of his hand and wrapped her fingers around his. They stood like that for several minutes, and if Sharon said anything, he couldn't hear it over the thunder of his pulse.

He was elated, and confused, and absolutely terrified. He hadn't a clue what to do, if anything should be done at all. Put his arm around her? Run for the hills? Tell her everything? Hide out in the secret workshop he'd set up to crack the stolen data disk? Get the farmer with the biplane to put a proposal in sky-writing? Leave with the Stranded pirates and die a lonely and bitter old man? All options were equally tempting.

Sharon straightened up when an orderly took in the first bag of donated blood. "They found a match!" She turned to him. "They found a match!" she exclaimed again, and with a little hop to reach, she flung her arms around his neck and squeezed tight. Baird squeezed back, making a mental note to wear his chest piece as little as possible so he could feel her body against him the next time.

When she released him, he did the same, but only after one more glorious second of contact. He was far too nervous to be thinking of sex; it was all about the closeness. When she stepped away from him to rush down and see how many bloodhounds were a match, there was a tearing sensation, like he'd been mummified with duct tape and then someone had ripped it all off at the same time.

It was awful.

Baird had to leave. He had to get out, he had to get away, he had to go somewhere and think.

The 'somewhere' took care of itself when, leaving the med center in a swirling cloud of overlapping thoughts, someone grabbed his elbow and yanked him into a large supply closet.

It was Cole, of course, but the surprise was Bernie, leaning casually against a mop sink and looking like a cat that had just eaten a whole flock of canaries.

"So, what's new with you, Blondie?"

Bernie saw Baird's face go totally blank. "Nothing. Why?" Even if Bernie hadn't had privileged information, that alone would have told her something was fishy. Normally every emotion he had –mostly negative ones– was plainly obvious. Baird was honest to a fault, one of the reasons Bernie had slowly come to appreciate his blunt personality. He'd made it onto her list of _People I Wouldn't Mind Sharing A Foxhole With_, which was very exclusive.

"Come on, mate, we haven't got all day. Tell your old mum what happened while I was gone." Bernie had already prepared herself to catch him by the ankles if he tried to run.

It only took a second for him to catch on. He really was a bright boy.

Baird spun to face Cole. "You _told_ her!" Bernie's amusement lasted up until he snapped, "I trusted you!" Having one man dump her for his career and her husband commit adultery meant Bernie had a good grasp of feeling betrayed.

This was going pear-shaped fast, so she cut in. "He didn't tell me, I guessed everything." Baird glared at her and then at Cole, but his expression was softening._ 'Poor kid, he really wants to believe his best friend didn't tell the first person he saw.'_ She kept it going. "You know Cole. Not even his face can tell a lie."

Baird eyed Cole warily, but with much less hostility. "Yeah, I do know. One of the reasons I let him stick around."

"Stick around?" Cole let out a big belly laugh. "_Stick_ _around_? Son, we are in-sep-'rable!" He jumped up and crushed Baird in a one-armed hug while holding the other out to Bernie. "Come on, Bern! Group hug!"

"All right, all right, all right." Baird pushed Cole away. He adjusted the strap on his goggles like the big man had mussed his hair. "What tipped you off, Bernie?" he asked, probably trying to get back on topic so Cole wouldn't wrangle him into doing a trust fall.

"You let Sharon borrow your goggles." Baird touched the lenses self-consciously. Bernie nodded. "Yup. Blondie, you don't even let _Cole_ use your goggles."

"He's never asked for 'em," Baird mumbled.

"Okay," Cole said immediately. He held out his hand. "Give 'em here." Baird frowned and took a step back. This time Bernie laughed along with Cole. "See? That's how Bernie found out you loved her. Then she grilled me for a good five minutes."

"I knew when I was getting warmer from his expressions. It's really not his fault, Blondie. I'm just too observant." He snorted at that, but Bernie could see his relief that he didn't have to pretend indifference in front of her. _'Now he has two people he can talk to about her.'_ Bernie would like to think she'd make it onto Baird's foxhole list. "And it sure explains a hell of a lot of your behavior."

He crossed his arms. "You tell me what you think you know, and I'll tell you if you're right."

"You've been in love with her since you were seven or eight," Bernie recited. "You were a couple in high school, but Sharon married someone rich because her family needed money. You were mad at her, but you've been slowly warming up to her, and the final kick in the pants was earlier today when you thought Carmine was sleeping with Sharon."

"That's it?"

Bernie cocked her head. "What do you mean, 'that's it'?"

Baird looked back and forth between them. "You two don't know jack."

Cole looked confused. "I thought you told me everything."

"I told you everything you needed to know in order to understand my ... distrust."

"Well, then spill it, Blondie. We're listening."

Baird sat down on an overturned bucket. He looked incredibly weary. If Bernie had a blanket and a bowl of hot soup, she would have given them to him. "Fine," he said. "I'm tired of keeping it to myself." He took a deep breath and then let all the words out in a rush, "We dated for ten years and were engaged for five when her family lost all their money and bullied her into marrying my best friend who immediately kidnapped DENIS and got her pregnant which is the only reason I didn't finish him off when I beat him up and then she showed up ten years after he died and treats me like we're just two people who went to school together." It seemed Cole hadn't known how long they'd been a couple, because he looked as stunned as Bernie felt.

"Ten years?" Cole choked.

"Your best friend?" Bernie almost stuttered. If Cole had known that, he left it out. She'd have words with him later about skimping on details.

"Yeah." Baird rubbed his face in his hands, pushing his goggles up into his hair. "Now I'm in love with her again and I don't know what to do." His eyes met Bernie's and she saw the same mixture of worry, hope and indecision she'd felt upon finding out Victor Hoffman was still alive.

"Again?" Cole snorted. "Try 'still'." He pointed at Baird and said smugly to Bernie, "You know my boy here hasn't been with a woman since Sharon?" Cole was flexing his teasing-humor muscles again.

"Ohhh, reeeallly," Bernie drawled. "How _interesting_."

"Stop it," Baird said warningly.

"Kissed a couple, but it never went anywhere," Cole told Bernie, ignoring him.

"Do tell!" Bernie hammed it up like the stacks of boxes and folded gurneys were a fancy backdrop.

"Even tried it with Sam once, which is why they don't get along now."

"Cole!" Baird looked horrified.

"Whaaat?" Bernie didn't have to fake astonishment. This closet was a veritable treasure trove of scandalous information. "You kissed my Samantha?!"

"Yeah, and then gargled rubbing alcohol for a week." Baird's eyes shot daggers at Cole, who smiled broadly.

"Okay, okay, okay," Bernie waved a _Settle down_ hand. "We'll come back to that later." She pointed at Baird, who froze like her finger was the barrel of a gun. "First things first: getting you and your girl back together."

Baird shook his head, looking very grim. "Good luck with that. For ten years she didn't care to find out if I was alive or dead, and when she did see me, she ran for her life." He rubbed at an oil spot on the back of his hand. "Then I spread some pretty vicious rumors, yelled at her a lot and called her names. That may sound like kid stuff, but I could tell it hurt her." His expression went from grim to miserable. "I don't think this can be fixed, Bernie," he said softly. She'd never heard him use that tone, and it made a shiver run down her back.

Bernie squatted in front of him so his lowered gaze couldn't miss her. "Hey," she tapped his knee. "Hey." He met her eyes. "If I can forgive Vic, Sharon can forgive you." A little spark lit in his eyes, and color started coming back to his grayish skin.

"Love conquers all!" Cole boomed. It was a good thing this hallway was rarely used, or this wouldn't be a very private conversation.

Bernie and Baird hissed, "Cole, keep it down!" in unison. That was awkward for a moment.

"Anyway," she continued, standing to give Baird some thinking room, "I heard you two were pretty cozy last night. Always a good sign."

"Well, she _was_ lying on top of me in bed when I woke up this morning."

Bernie took a page from Cole's playbook. "Oooh, steamy!"

Baird rolled his eyes, exactly as she'd intended. "Not quite, Granny. We were fully clothed and I was wearing lower-body armor."

Pouting wasn't a regular expression for sixty-year-old veterans of two global wars, but she thought she pulled it off rather well. "No surly blond grandkids in the offing?"

"No," Baird said firmly. "Definitely not." He stood and paced the small amount of floor that wasn't taken up by Cole, Bernie, or medical supplies. With each short pass, his hair brushed the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. "Maybe never," he said quietly.

Bernie needed to pull him out of this downward spiral. "Hmm. Has she done anything that would suggest she has feelings for you? I mean other than an old girlfriend normally would."

Baird fiddled with his goggles again. "I don't know, Bernie," he said in an exasperated tone, "nothing she wouldn't do for anyone else ..." His eyes drifted slowly sideways like he was reading something off a page, then went very wide. He grabbed Bernie by her elbows. "She called me 'babe'."

"Babe?" Sharon called people 'honey', and 'darling' all the time, so Bernie didn't see how 'babe' was special.

"Yes, 'babe'!"

"Is that good?"

Baird's expression was like a desperately poor man waiting to see if his lottery ticket had the winning number. "It might be. We didn't have pet names, except for 'babe'. Or 'sugar' if we were being sarcastic."

"Awww, 'babe' and 'sugar'," Cole grinned. "Isn't that sweet?"

"Yeah," she added teasingly, "friggin' adorable. Like 'sweetheart' or 'dearest'."

Cole smiled wider. "Dumpling."

"Honey bun." She and Vic didn't use endearments, but her ex-(and probably dead) husband Neal had had plenty of sappy terms for her.

"Princess."

"Cupcake."

"Snookums."

"Beloved." Bernie clasped her hands over her heart and batted her eyelashes outrageously.

Baird said, "You two need to stop that. Forever."

"Point is, we need to remind her why she loved you in the first place."

"Bernie, I'm not that teenage boy anymore. Not to her. 'Damon' ended when I attacked James; I saw it in her face."

She brushed it off. "So we'll make her fall for the man you are now."

She and Cole regarded their project. Their foul-mouthed, dirty, bad-tempered, social skill-less, universally despised, perpetually demoted, misanthropist project.

After a lengthy silence Baird acknowledged, "Yeah, you've got your work cut out for you."

Cole guffawed. Oh, how Bernie loved that man.

She clapped her hands in dismissal. "I need to think on this a bit. Don't do anything major without running it by me first. Okay?"

Regular old Baird would have told her where she could shove her unofficial orders, but the man she saw now was a creature only Cole had seen before. "Sure," he said. "Okay."

"Great. Now if you'll excuse me for a bit, I have another fish to fry." She peeked out the door. Finding both directions clear, she quickly stepped out.

Just before she clicked the latch closed, she heard Cole say, "Sweetie-pie," and Baird respond, "I will _end_ you, Augustus."

Bernie left Cole to soothe Baird and went in search of her next target: Anya.

**# # #**

*** Major Reid is a very, very minor character in the books, so I thought I'd axe him because the Chimeras had to pull off at least one assassination.**


	92. E-Day plus 15 years 2 weeks: 1600 Marcus

**{Thanks to everybody for being patient while I worked to pay off some bills. You're the best!}**

E-DAY plus 15 YEARS, 2 WEEKS

[Medical Center, VNB: 1600 hours]

"Anya!"

Anya turned away from the exit door. Bernie was bearing down on her like a freight train. A freight train with jets of fire shooting out the stack.

"Yes, Sergeant, what is it?"

Bernie demanded furiously, "Don't you 'sergeant' me, young lady. I used to change your nappies!"

"Nappies?" That wasn't an Islander term Anya was familiar with.

"Diapers!" Bernie snapped. "I used to change your diapers, so don't try to pull rank on me."

"It's not pulling rank for me to call you 'Sergeant' while we're on duty, Mataki."

Bernie closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. "You're right. Sorry." She opened her eyes. Despite her new calm, they were still fiery. "Let's be off-duty for a few minutes."

"All right."

"Why did you dump Marcus?" Bernie looked hurt, disappointed and angry in equal measure.

"Me? No, Bernie, whoever told you that is wrong. Marcus broke it off with me, not the other way around." With less effort than the first time, Anya mentally reinforced the wall enclosing her emotional side, what she'd come to think of as the 'Marcus quadrant'. There had been a good deal of commotion in the Marcus quadrant when Mathieson first informed her of Marcus's injury, but she had successfully put down the uprising during the Raven flight to the naval base.

Now Bernie's brow wrinkled. "Actually, it was Cole, and he told me he thought it was Marcus who called it off, but ... I'm sorry Anya, I just couldn't believe it. I thought he must have had it backwards."

"Why's that?"

"Because Marcus is – is _Marcus_."

"Well, that clears things right up," Anya wryly responded.

"You know what I mean," Bernie said testily. "Marcus just – he just ..."

Bernie was gesturing with her hands a lot, which Anya knew from experience meant the sergeant was upset. Anya felt a distant echo of concern for her mentor, but it was muffled by the imaginary bricks that contained her emotions. In the long, long week since Marcus had discarded her like a soiled handkerchief, Anya had barely felt anything at all. It seemed her feelings in general could not be separated from her feelings for Marcus in specific; protecting herself from the grief of losing him meant deadening all of her emotions, not just the ones directly related to him. This had actually turned out to be quite an advantage during the Leviathan attack; she hadn't felt one moment of the body-freezing panic most greenhorns experienced during their first battle. At first she wondered if she'd lost her survival instincts, which would make her unfit for frontline duty like Captain Tremain, but when the Leviathan had attacked the Pelruan shoreline, that theory was disproven.

When the tentacle had twisted up through the water like an immense, suction-cupped python, rising at least thirty feet over her head and threatening to slap down with destructive force, her body had produced a flood of adrenaline that caused the legendary 'slow-mo' effect she'd always heard about. The dimming light of sunset became as bright as a flash of lightning when her pupils dilated to their maximum, and every bead of water shed by the tentacle reflected an array of brilliant colors like tiny prisms. She had had more than enough time to shoot the Polyps that leapt from the tentacle, and although she and her garrison had spent over an hour chasing down individual Polyps, her muscles never got tired. Sometimes she even outflanked Sam, who'd been riding a motorcycle. It was the first time she'd felt alive in over a week, and it made her want only one thing: more targets to destroy.

She questioned patiently, "Marcus just what, Bernie?"

"He wouldn't do that."

"He did. And he didn't tell me why, so don't ask. If you want answers, go question him. Or his new girlfriend, whoever she is."

The astonishment on Bernie's face was as if Anya had informed her that she'd been dressing game the wrong way all these years. "Girlfriend? Marcus has a new girlfriend?"

"I would assume so," Anya replied coolly, "he's a very appealing man, with quite an extensive female fan base."

The sergeant's expression relaxed. "Oh, you're _assuming_ he has someone new." She leaned her shoulder against the wall and crossed her arms. "Let me tell you something about Marcus, because I knew him long before Aspho, and you didn't. That boy –" Bernie halted for a moment, her eyes seeing something long ago. "Marcus doesn't replace _anyone_. Carlos died and Marcus never let another person mean the same thing to him. Not even Dom." Anya believed it; Dom had told her how Marcus never confided in him quite like he had with Carlos. "Carlos was 'Best Friend'. Dom isn't allowed to fill that role because the position is still taken. Does that make sense?"

"It's a good analogy," Anya admitted. It certainly seemed like the behavior of a Fenix.

"Dom isn't Best Friend, as much as he'd like to be, but he is allowed to be Brother. No one else can ever take his place. Even if Dom _died_, he'd still be Brother to Marcus." Bernie listed roles on her fingers. "Adam was Father and Elain was Mother; Marcus didn't adopt another parent figure. Not me, not Hoffman, not Michaelson, nobody. Carlos was, and still is, Best Friend. Dom is Brother, Maria is Sister, and you, Anya—" There was some more activity behind Anya's wall, which she brutally suppressed. "—you are Lover." Bernie frowned slightly. "No, no, there's got to be a better word for it. Something even rarer. You're ... you're ..." She snapped her fingers. "Got it! You're the Beloved. Listen, Anya: Marcus only has one slot for each role, and only one person in each slot. If one of those people disappears, there are no replacements and no substitutions. 'The position has been filled,' so to speak." Bernie tapped Anya's chest piece. "You are still occupying the Beloved slot. He would never fill it with anyone else, even if you died."

"It's a good theory, Bernie, but I wouldn't bet money on it." Hope was also one of the things imprisoned behind Anya's brick wall. It was too dangerous and too painful to be let loose.

Bernie lifted her chin. "Go ahead and doubt. You'll see I'm right."

"I think what we'll see is that even if your theory's correct, he'll probably make a role for Booty Call."

Bernie's face tightened. "Now you're just making me angry."

A week ago, making Bernadette Mataki angry would have scared the bejeezus out of Anya, but today the Stroud in her could have steamrolled right over this formidable woman and kept on going. A distant whisper warned,_ 'Don't do it, Anya. It's not necessary.' _The voice sounded an awful lot like Helena.

"I'm sorry if that upsets you, Bernie, but you're going to have to get used to the idea that it's over, and it was Marcus's choice." Anya pointedly checked her tactical belt to make sure everything was in place. "This personal discussion is finished, Sergeant Mataki. If you have any further inquiries on the subject, please direct them to Sergeant Fenix."

"You're damn right I will." Anya raised an official eyebrow at her subordinate. "Lieutenant," Bernie added.

"You are certainly free to do so." Anya glanced at her chrono. "The Raven will be taking us back to Pelruan at nineteen hundred hours. Don't be late."

Bernie watched Anya stride away. She even _walked_ like her mother now. Anya's icy demeanor strongly resembled Helena immediately after telling Anya's father to stay the hell out of her baby girl's life or be painfully castrated in a dark alley. Bernie had volunteered to hold him down for her.

Helena had been able to move on with her life, even to love again, if Bernie's suspicions were right. Maybe Anya would too. Marcus definitely would not. Bernie had to stop this before the distance between them became permanent.

Baird could wait. His attachment to Sharon had lasted twenty-five years, fifteen of which he hadn't seen her in person, and _ten_ of which he'd thought she was dead; it wasn't going anywhere. After this conversation with Anya, though, Bernie knew she was racing the clock.

She went back to the operating area and joined Hoffman in standing over the stabilized Chimera.

"Goddamned creepy," Vic declared, staring down at the unconscious Locust master handcuffed to the bedrails. "It's human, but it's not, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I do." There was a sense of wrongness about this man. Bernie tried and failed to put her finger on exactly what. He was deathly pale except for a vicious sunburn across his forehead, nose and cheekbones from exposure to Vectes's harsh sunlight. He was taller than Cole, thinner than Jace and blonder than Baird, but definitely still _Homo sapiens_.

The two dead Chimeras lay in unzipped body-bags on the other side of the trauma lobby. Besides the obvious lack of life, they were much the same as the live one; tall, thin, blond and _wrong_. They looked like triplets, but Bernie's instincts said they weren't. She shivered. "What do we do with him?"

"The dead ones are going to be autopsied. This live one will be patched up and kept under heavy guard until he's well enough to be interrogated. We could never negotiate peace with the Locust because until Hollow Storm we didn't know they _had_ leaders. This is one hell of an opportunity."

"So long as it's not Trescu doing the interrogating."

Hoffman snorted. "The UIR always was one to shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out, but that one still caught me off guard. The doc's still pissed that it happened in her hospital." Bernie and Vic turned to look for her just as the old physician shouldered out the swinging doors of the operating room.

Marcus was there instantly. "What's the verdict?"

Hayman pulled down her mask with one hand and began stripping off her surgical gloves. "He's stable for the moment, but beyond that you need to talk to the vet, Dr. Jessup. Canine anatomy isn't really my field." She tossed the bloody gloves in a hazardous waste bin and put her hands on her hips. "Now if it's all right with you, Sergeant, I'd like to attend to my _human_ patient."

His eyes flickered in the Chimera's direction. "Stay on your toes, doc. 'Human' doesn't mean 'tame'."

"I'll bear that in mind." She set about rounding up staff for another, more commonplace surgery. She gave Hoffman a poisonous glare as she passed, as if to say _Don't you dare let him be executed in my hospital._ Hoffman didn't protest, given what had happened to the last terrorist they'd had handcuffed to a gurney.

"Carmine, Jace," Hoffman called to the youngest Deltas. "You two keep an eye on the prisoner until I personally tell you otherwise. And don't let Miran Trescu within a hundred meters of him, you copy?"

"Yes sir," they responded, looking relieved to have an official duty.

The vet waved at Marcus to enter the operating room.

"Marcus, Colonel," Dom said, "if it's all right with you I'd like to get back to Maria."

"Fine by me," Vic answered.

"Watch your back," Marcus said. "There's still one out there."

"I will, Marcus. You too." Dom hustled off to find his bride. Bernie fervently hoped he was too low on the totem pole for the Chimeras to be interested in him. Hoffman and Reid were obvious targets, and she assumed they'd targeted Marcus because of his ability to rally the troops and his relationship to Adam Fenix. With luck, they didn't know that killing Dom would have been just as effective at sidelining Marcus as a baseball bat to the knee.

Looking at his face as Marcus entered the operating room, Bernie recognized that Rookie's death might have had a similar effect. _'Bloody hell,' _she thought. _'He's actually fond of a dog!'_ It was spectacularly bad timing that he was so raw at precisely the moment she needed to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing by ending his affair with Anya.

Bernie and Vic followed him in to get the news, good or bad.

"The transfusion stabilized him long enough for us to stop the bleeding," Dr. Jessup said as seriously as a surgeon talking about a human patient. Bernie decided she liked him already. "This wound," he pointed out the one in the hound's chest, "collapsed the right lung, but we were able to get it reinflated. The one in his side was damn lucky, just missing his intestines." The vet paused, and his audience tensed up, especially Marcus. "The one in his leg, well ... that's not so lucky. The blade completely severed the tendons at the elbow joint. Only time will tell if he gets the function back. And if it goes gangrenous, it'll have to come off."

'_Amputation. Shit,'_ Bernie thought. She knew what he'd say next.

"In an average dog, getting around on three legs isn't much of a problem at all. Animals aren't upset by losing limbs the way humans are. Most adjust to it right away. With a large breed like a bloodhound, however, their sheer weight is an issue. Tends to put a lot of strain on the joints in the remaining legs. A lot of the dogs develop knee problems. So we'll have to hope it doesn't come to that." He regarded Marcus like a pediatrician to an ill child's parent. "You think you'll be able to keep the wounds clean and dressed? They'll have to be redone every few hours."

Marcus almost looked offended at the implication he might do otherwise. "Damn right I will. He probably saved my life today." It was a far cry from the low-key bitching he'd done when originally paired with the dog.

"Good. The fur makes it a bit different from bandaging a human. Let me show you ..."

Marcus focused so intently on Dr. Jessup's instructions that he hardly noticed Bernie and the Colonel slipping out.

After learning how to apply the dressings and where to inject the antibiotics, Marcus wheeled Rookie into his own private recovery room. He was still unconscious from the heavy anesthesia and his tongue was hanging out the side so he wouldn't choke on it. Marcus wet the sponge he'd been given and dabbed moisture on the tongue to keep it from drying out. That little task done, there wasn't much else he could do for him until the dog woke up.

Marcus laid his hand on Rookie's side, reassured by the steady rise and fall of the deep chest.

_When he enters the evening salon, Anya already has Rookie tucked into a pile of blankets in front of the blazing fire._

"_He drank a whole bowl of water," she tells Marcus. "The books say that's a good sign."_

"_That's what I hear," he replies, coming to sit next to them on the floor. Anya slips an arm around his waist. Rookie pants in that dopey way, and the fabric over his haunches ripples as he wags his blanket-draped tail._

"_It's even better if he eats something. I'm going to make him a snack." Anya smoothes Marcus's hair before crossing over to the door._

"_Put some chopped carrots in it. He likes that. And duck liver. The good stuff."_

"_I'll even puree it for him."_

_Rookie almost appears to be smirking._

"_Spoiled mutt," Marcus says._

_Yes, he definitely looks smug._

_Marcus gets up to peruse the wall-to-wall bookshelves framing the fireplace, lingering over the legal history section. Finally he locates it._

"_Yeah, I knew we had it," he tells Rookie, showing him the official-looking title. "Landmark Closing Arguments from the Late Silver Era. It's a lot more interesting than it sounds."_

_Rookie's expression is dubious._

"_You'll see." Marcus returns to his spot on the floor, leaning back against the seat of a long sofa. "Pay attention. It's about dogs."_

_The hound perks up._

"_See, this farmer spent several years and hundreds of dollars –that was a lot back then— trying to get justice for his dog. His asshole of a neighbor shot his favorite hunting dog just for walking across his property, then tried to sink the body in a creek to hide the evidence." Rookie scowled. "Yeah, the neighbor was a real bastard. Anyhow, the farmer went to court several times trying to get a conviction because he knew the neighbor had only shot the dog out of spite. The third time, he hired a lawyer who had dogs of his own that he really cared about." Rookie settles down into the blankets like a kid preparing for a bedtime story. "Here's the closing argument he gave._

"Gentlemen of the jury—"_ Marcus interrupts himself for a sidebar. "This was before ladies were allowed on juries." Rookie snorts in distaste of the misogyny*. "Yeah, tell me about it. Anyway—  
_  
"Gentlemen of the jury:

The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter whom he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has he may lose. It flies from him perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is the dog."

_Rookie appears to nod in agreement. Marcus continues._

"Gentlemen of the jury:

A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground when the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he can be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.

When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth an outcast into the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws and his eyes sad but open, in alert watchfulness, faithful and true, even unto death." **

"_Not that I think you're going to die," Marcus amends quickly. Rookie yawns like it's a silly idea anyway. "Of course you're going to live. You have to. Who else is going to pee on the expensive rose bushes? Not me, Mom would truss me up like a turkey."_

_Rookie smirks again._

Marcus stroked the dog's head from nose to neck. "Sorry I thought you'd turned on me. I should have known better." He thought he saw Rookie's eyes moving slightly behind their lids. "Of course you're going to keep your leg," he promised his faithful hound. "I'll make sure of it."

**# # #**

***I added a few words to make it clear Marcus isn't against women serving on juries. But you knew that already.**

****The closing argument is known as "Eulogy of the Dog", delivered in 1870 by George Graham Vest, and the dog was named Old Drum. They won the case, by the way.**


End file.
